


Thrown for a Loop

by Just_Another_Day



Series: Thrown for a Loop [1]
Category: Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat
Genre: Alternate Universe - Bodyguard, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Roommates/Housemates, Alternate Universe - Skating, Alternate Universe - Sports, Background Ancel/Berenger, Drama, M/M, Past Abuse, Slow Burn, Thirsty Men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-26
Updated: 2018-11-28
Packaged: 2019-08-29 16:04:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 32,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16747153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Just_Another_Day/pseuds/Just_Another_Day
Summary: Damen almost let the job pass him by without considering it. After all, what could some no-name figure skater need serious private personal protection for? Then he met him.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [filteredred's](https://filteredred.tumblr.com/) tumblr [prompt](https://justanotherdaylikeanyother.tumblr.com/post/180505780512/trying-to-think-up-a-prompt-for-you-has-made-me). It was supposed to be a one-shot. Ha. I've marked down as two parts total, but it could make it to three yet. EDIT: Nope, lbr, it's definitely going to be 3 chapters, and I've changed the chapter count accordingly.
> 
> You shouldn't need to have any figure skating knowledge going into this, since it's written from Damen's PoV, and he doesn't have a clue, lol.
> 
> Full disclosure, I'm not Canadian, I know nothing about ice hockey, and my understanding of what a bodyguard does is limited to what I've seen in popular media, so expect a lot of glossing over things and potentially some (hopefully small) inaccuracies. Let's just say I'm taking creative license because this was never supposed to be a research-heavy endeavour.

"That's him," Pallas said, nodding his head towards Damen's left. "Laurent de Vere. The figure skater Lazar somehow seems to know, though he won't tell me the details. He mentioned the guy to you yesterday, remember? Lazar was saying he was asking about security companies, looking for personal protection. I don't think he's found anything that suits him, if you're still looking for work out on your own."

Damen had dismissed it at first when Lazar had brought it up. Why would a figure skater _really_ need a bodyguard? Damen had just bet he was freaking out because he wasn't used to having those couple of persistent zealous fans that even the less famous athletes seemed to get, but who it usually turned out wanted nothing more than to get an autograph or a selfie even if that meant pestering the person. The job would be all standing around looking menacing without actually having to do something. Damen preferred jobs where he could really make a difference in someone's life, because they needed help and he could give it to them. The figure skater could go to one of the companies that didn't mind taking his money regardless of actual need, as far as Damen was concerned. 

He'd nearly forgotten all about it entirely, thinking it would never come up again. But if the man was right here, it would be stupid of Damen to not take a minute to at least find out a little more, just to be sure. After all, Lazar wasn't always the most reliable source of information.

Damen turned to look. Then blinked. 

Oh. 

No wonder Lazar seemed so utterly certain that Damen would be interested in this job, despite Damen's reticence to consider it. Though that was, of course, exactly why he shouldn't go anywhere near it. It was unprofessional at best, and possibly dangerous as well, to sign up to protect someone who he immediately found so _distracting_. Nikandros would have Damen's head for it, if he knew.

Damen would be working independently on this one, though. Nikandros and his company policies didn't get a say, really. That wouldn't stop Nikandros from having words with him, if it ever got to that point, but much to Nikandros's chagrin, Damen didn't actually have to listen to him when he wasn't playing the role of Damen's temporary boss.

Damen found himself standing in front of the blond before he even recalled consciously making the decision to go there.

"Hello," Damen said.

"Not interested," Laurent said flatly, not even glancing up from where he was rifling through his bag to look at Damen. 

"And yet I heard you were."

"Lies. People have been known to tell them occasionally."

He had an accent, Damen realised. Not so heavy that it made his words difficult to understand, but certainly enough to give them a lyrical quality. It wasn't a Québécois accent either. European French of some description, Damen would wager. And yet his English seemed to be remarkably proficient, from what little evidence Damen had at this stage.

"Why would someone bother lying about you needing a bodyguard?" Damen asked curiously.

Laurent's eyes finally flicked to Damen. He looked momentarily taken aback. Clearly Damen wasn't what he'd been expecting. What had he been anticipating, then? A reporter? A young fan of his skating wanting to get tips or an autograph? A pimply-faced teenager looking to get a leg over, who thought highly enough of himself not to care that this man was leagues above him?

"How do you know that?" Laurent asked. "No one's supposed to know I'm looking for a bodyguard. And since when do personal protection firms come cold-calling to potential clients?"

"I'm not directly affiliated with an agency," Damen explained. "Most of the time. I pick up work with the best one in the region when needed, but otherwise I'm independent."

"Really? And what use are you supposed to be to me if you aren't even good enough to make it in the industry as more than a temp?"

Damen countered, "It's not about being good enough. I simply don't like being ordered around all the time, and I don't want to be mostly shunted into an admin or oversight role if I ran my own firm instead. It's the actual protection details I like, not coordinating staff. And freelancing pays more anyway."

"Not with me, it wouldn't. I can barely afford to pay for my costumes this season."

Damen found that difficult to believe. Figure skating might not be particularly high-profile as sports went, but with a face, and a body, like that, it should hardly matter. Companies should be taking one look at him and throwing countless sponsorships at him like he was the ice and it was the season for the Teddy Bear Toss.

He said so, though he left the part about Laurent's appearance to implication only. He thought Laurent would get the point. He had to know how he looked. 

Laurent made a humming sound. "Getting sponsorships would require that I was marketable enough to make it worth their while to ignore certain… pressures not to associate with me. And for that I need my name to be well-known more than I need looks."

"Now who isn't good enough at their job?" Damen heard himself say. 

Well, there went _that_ potential employment.

But Laurent didn't look particularly angry. Instead, he was surveying Damen seriously.

"He can't have sent you," Laurent eventually announced. "His goons would have tried to either sweet-talk or strong-arm me into it. They wouldn't have shot themselves in the foot like that, at the risk of getting on his bad side when they inevitably failed."

"I don't know who 'he' is, but no one sent me." A moment later, Damen backtracked, "Well, I suppose Lazar did, to a point. He told me you were searching."

"Lazar," Laurent said the word like a curse. "Typical. I should have known I couldn't trust him to keep his mouth shut. But he can't just go spreading it around like that. It's dangerous."

Which begged the question of why an athlete who wasn't even famous enough to warrant sponsorships would face enough danger to think he required personal security in the first place, let alone to have to keep that fact hushed up.

"If it's a big deal for people to know you're taking on protection, that's exactly why you should go for an independent guard rather than one of the companies. No one has to know I'm guarding you," Damen said. "I'm good at being discreet."

Laurent looked at Damen like he'd said something insane. "You're ten feet tall and almost as wide around. I don't think 'discreet' is the right word. People would have to be blind to fail to notice you."

"Maybe, but I can easily pass for your fitness trainer, or even as your agent or manager if you already have a trainer who would make that story difficult to sell. Or your boyfriend, since that would explain me accompanying you home all the time."

"Oh, no one's going to believe _that_ ," Laurent scoffed.

Ok. That was insulting. 

"It's irrelevant anyway," Laurent said. "I can't pay you. I don't even have enough right now to cover your flights if you needed to travel abroad with me to an event. And there are no banks who'll loan to me. I'd consider a loan shark, but one broken leg is enough for one year, I think."

Well that sounded ominous.

"How were you expecting to afford someone else, then?" Damen asked.

"I thought an established agency might have procedures in place for some kind of payment plan. All I need is to make it as far as the international competitions. I'll get the money quickly enough as soon as I start medalling at events and getting my name and face seen."

"You're fairly certain you'll succeed, for someone who apparently hasn't managed it at all yet."

"And you're fairly blunt, for someone who hasn't got the job yet," Laurent countered. 

In truth, Damen wasn't overly worried about that. He might have been the one who approached Laurent initially, but it seemed – knowing about Laurent's financial difficulties – that Laurent probably needed Damen in particular a lot more than Damen needed Laurent as a client.

"Believe me, I don't expect to have the same problems here that stopped me in the past. The Canadian Skating Federation is _desperate_ for an up-and-coming talented male skater to replace their recently-retired champion. Desperate enough that they won't overlook performance in favour of a bribe, unlike the Fédération Française des Sports de Glace."

"You can just change countries like that?" 

"My mother was Canadian. I have dual citizenship."

'Was', Damen noted.

"That's not exactly what I meant. I can't imagine just changing loyalties like that," Damen said. 

"I don't owe France anything, let alone my 'loyalty'," Laurent said flatly. There was something behind the words, though, as if there were more to the story. Perhaps it was just about Laurent's implication that they'd been keeping him from competing at a higher level.

"Still," Damen said. "If I'd made it that far before my knee got screwed up and took me off the ice, I could only ever have stomached representing Canada. It's my home. If they'd shafted me, that would have sucked, but I can't imagine running off to Greece to try to make the team there, dual citizenship or not."

Laurent narrowed his eyes at Damen. "Hockey player," he said dismissively. "You'd definitely never pass for my boyfriend, then. He knows I'd never stoop so low."

Damen gritted his teeth and seriously considered just walking away. But there was something about the way he talked that suggested Laurent really was in some kind of trouble after all. More than just excited fans. A stalker, perhaps. Damen doubted it was an overreaction, either, now that he'd seen Laurent. Looking like that, he could easily have dozens of lunatics following him around, obsessed enough with him to seriously threaten his safety. But no legitimate personal security firm was going to take on a client who might not be able to pay them, whatever Laurent might be hoping.

That being the case, it was kind of tailor-made for Damen's preferences; a job that was important, and that only Damen could – or would – do.

"I could pose as your trainer, then, like I said," Damen said. "I could agree to work for you without payment in advance up until your first major competition. There's prize money at these things, isn't there? If you do as well as you think, you can reimburse me then and continue my employment. If you don't, you'll have to reconsider your options then. I can't wait forever for some income. I do have bills to pay, after all. But I'd want to at least see you skate first, so that I know you're actually good enough that there's at least a chance I'm not throwing my time away with no hope of payment."

Damen thought Laurent would refuse. He certainly didn't seem to like Damen much, and so Damen couldn't imagine he'd want Damen constantly hanging around him for potentially weeks on end.

Apparently, Laurent was intelligent enough to realise just how limited his options really were, though for he said, "There won't be anything truly impressive I can do here. It's a public session. Even in the centre section, I'd probably risk taking some small child's head off if I did a camel spin, for example, and there's no way I could get enough of a run-up to safely do more than a triple toe at the absolute best."

"Why _are_ you at a public rink, anyway?" Damen asked. "I thought whatever club you were affiliated with would have its own space." That was how it had worked in hockey, anyway. 

"I haven't contacted my intended coach yet," Laurent said. "I've only been in Canada for four days. But I can't go too long without skating, hence this place."

"You came all the way here without lining up a coach first?" Damen asked. He didn't know much about the figure skating world – except that they all seemed to stare down their noses at hockey players just like Laurent had done – but he had to assume that it was unusual to cross the world without being sure there would be a place waiting on the other end.

"Oh, there's no question he'll take me on. I just didn't want to give anyone the chance to intervene if the news of the coaching shift got out too early."

Yet more cryptic hints about what he was facing. Damen would have to at least try to insist on more transparency if he did take Laurent on as a client. But it was sounding more and more with each discordant piece of information that Damen really should take him on. Nikandros had always said he got too easily invested. Damen couldn't really argue the point. The guy was a bit of a prick, sure, but that wasn't reason enough to leave someone who was legitimately in trouble unprotected.

"Just show me whatever you can manage in this setting," Damen said. "I'm sure I'll get the idea."

Laurent shrugged. "You're probably easily impressed anyway, if your background is just in hockey."

Damen tried not to bristle. He might not play anymore, but that wasn't due to choice. In his heart, he was still a hockey player.

Watching Laurent prepare to take the ice was… instructive. 

His dynamic stretches emphasised his muscles through his stretchy clothing. Those muscles were more impressive than Damen had initially realised given how lean Laurent looked at first glance. Damen also found himself impressed by how explosive his moves were as he lunged forward along the outside length of the boards. Laurent might mock hockey, but Damen thought he might just have made a decent playmaker, assuming he was also agile enough to avoid getting hit.

Not that Damen thought Laurent's agility was really in question. Or his flexibility, because damn.

Damen witnessed Laurent casually bringing one leg up, and up, and up, until he was holding it alongside his head, his legs in a perfect split, with no trace of effort on his face.

A choked noise escaped Damen's throat. He couldn't help but look at that face, and that insane level of suppleness, and think of him in a very different setting.

Laurent glanced over at him, obviously having heard. He frowned. "What?" he said flatly, as if he legitimately didn't know what Damen's problem was.

"Does that not _hurt_?" Damen asked faintly.

Laurent let his leg lower slowly down, exchanging it for the other soon after, all the while staring pointedly at Damen with his eyebrows raised. "Should it?" 

"For a normal human being, yes."

Laurent rolled his eyes. "Yes, well, not all sports rely on just waving a stick around and ramming into people. This is nothing, anyway. I lost a lot of flexibility when I went through a growth spurt at fifteen. I used to be able to do a hyper-extended Biellmann."

He said it as though that was supposed to mean anything at all to Damen. 

Eventually, Laurent exchanged his shoes for skates. As he was lacing them up, Laurent looked up expectantly at Damen.

"Well?" Laurent said. "Aren't you coming?"

It took Damen a moment to realise that Laurent meant onto the ice with him. 

It had been a while. Damen really just came to the rink as a spectator most days. He hadn't even brought his skates.

"Don't tell me you have to _rent_?" Laurent asked, aghast, when Damen mimed his lack of skating bag.

"I have my own skates, obviously," Damen said. "But they're not here."

Laurent shook his head. "I don't want you anywhere near me with those atrocities on your feet. Hockey skates are bad enough, but blunt ones that are probably on the verge of falling apart? I bet you'd just trip over them and fall on top of me, crushing me to death with your massive body. You'll just have to watch from here."

If Damen had already accepted the job, he probably would have had to go on the ice. It would be different in a closed session, where Damen could just ensure the rink itself was safe from intrusion and run a check on the limited number of other people who would be inside it. But today there were quite a few unchecked strangers swarming around the ice; more than Damen would expect in summer, though he supposed it was the weekend. In such a situation, in order to properly guard him, Damen would have to have remained close enough by Laurent's side to be in proximity if danger suddenly appeared.

But Laurent had come here not expecting to be guarded. Damen could only assume that either the danger didn't follow him everywhere, or otherwise he'd taken precautions not to be followed or let anyone know where he would be. It was only his second time here, he'd said. Hardly an easy pattern to predict and prepare for. And the fact that it was more crowded than a practice session would be, especially at this time of year, might actually be a benefit, depending on what the threat was. There was something to be said for there being more witnesses. 

Though even knowing all of that, and even though Laurent wasn't technically his client (yet), Damen would still probably feel guilty if anything did happen. 

So if he watched Laurent _very_ closely, it was really only for professional reasons. And to determine his skill level, just as Damen had said. Nothing else.

The skate guards came off, and Laurent stepped smoothly out onto the ice.

A couple of seemingly effortless strokes to pick up speed and take him away from the novices circling the edges of the rink alongside the boards was all it took for Damen to know that Laurent was at least decent. Once he had momentum, he shifted to glide towards the centre with his feet lined up but pointing in opposite directions, like some ballet stance or something. Once he was mostly clear of other skaters, he went quickly into a spin. Damen half-expected him to tilt back and fall onto the ice in one of the positions. Damen certainly would have (if he could have made his body fold into itself like a pretzel in the first place). The people closest to Laurent were giving him impressed looks. Well, they probably would have been doing that even if he were just standing still out there, because _look at him_. But it was clear that it wasn't isn't attractiveness that had people doing double-takes when he started spinning in a standing position, both feet on the ice this time, and his revolutions accelerating to being so fast that he literally blurred before Damen's eyes. His hair whipped out around his head like a halo. And yet he came out of it with no trace of dizziness.

Damen was fairly certain his mouth was hanging open. He probably wasn't the only one.

Laurent, uncaring, just went into another series of motions. 

Damen thought that Laurent was probably out there for twenty minutes, though he couldn't claim he'd looked away long enough to actually glance at a clock. Eventually, Laurent left the centre to coast slowly by where Damen was standing, calling out, "People seem to be giving me a wide berth. I might be able to show you a jump, if you require. Though I'm sure it's probably against the rules, so we'll likely be kicked out straight after."

"No," Damen said. "That won't be necessary."

Laurent looked smug. Of course he did.

Maybe Laurent was right, and Damen just had low standards because he didn't know what to expect. But while Damen didn't know much about figure skating, he knew skating in general. He'd grown up on the ice. He knew _quality_ when he saw it. Laurent probably hadn't done anything that a top skater wouldn't consider absolutely basic because of the restrictions of the environment, but there was no denying, in Damen's eyes, just how well he'd done it. Every move had been precise, but not stilted in the least. Damen could see how that would translate when Laurent was freed up to do what he actually wanted.

Damen found that he wanted to see that.

"So," Laurent said cheekily, "complementary protection until my first event, wasn't it?" 

"Protection you'll pay for after your first event, I think you'll find was the offer," Damen corrected. Though honestly, if he didn't make it so clear that he was an arrogant douche whenever he opened his mouth, Damen might almost have agreed to the other. "When is your first event, anyway?"

"The Challenger Series starts in two months," Laurent said. "But I'm hoping Berenger can get me into the Autumn Classic and the U.S. Classic so I don't have to cover travel expenses all the way to Europe or Asia, and those aren't until mid-September. And then if I'm somehow not given any assignments for the Grand Prix series once the federation sees me skate, which I doubt, Canadian sectionals would be next in November."

It was all gibberish to Damen – he had a feeling he was going to have to get used to that feeling of not quite following what Laurent was saying, since figure skating seemed to use an entirely different language from what Damen had encountered – but he understood enough to translate it as meaning three months before getting paid. It would stretch his budget, and Nikandros would probably skin him for making himself unavailable to pick up work with his firm for such an extended period, but it was certainly feasible.

"Who's Berenger?" Damen asked.

"My coach," Laurent said.

Right. His coach who hadn't even accepted him yet. His coach who, by the sounds of it, Laurent probably didn't have the money to pay for _his_ services either. And yet Laurent was dead certain that it was a done deal. Arrogance didn't really cover the extent of it, Damen thought.

"I intend to visit Berenger tomorrow afternoon, actually. So I'll have the contract drawn up ready for tomorrow morning and you can start then, yes?"

In the back of Damen's mind, he did remember that it was all a very bad idea. But he still agreed. He offered Laurent his number so that Laurent could text Damen his address and a time to meet the following day.

Laurent hesitated as he was putting it into his phone. "I could come up with a witty but insulting moniker to save your number under in my contacts," Laurent said, "or I suppose you could actually tell me your name instead."

Damen realised he hadn't even offered it. Nikandros always did say he had a poor business sense.

"Damen Akielos," Damen finally introduced himself. 

Laurent typed something into his phone. It might have been Damen's name. He couldn't be sure. Damen had a feeling that Laurent was going to be googling that name in short order, and calling Lazar to check up on him as well. That was ok. Damen intended to do the same. It was just good business to know as much as possible before starting a job.

Laurent slipped away from Damen's sight entirely nearly the moment he departed from Damen's side. The rink wasn't _that_ crowded, nor were there a lot of exits, so Damen couldn't be sure where he could even have managed to go so quickly. It seemed his speed and slippery qualities extended to off the ice as well.

Damen was going to have to very quickly get used to that, if he didn't want to be constantly lagging behind, trying to catch up to Laurent instead of leading the way for him as he should be.

*

As far as Damen could tell, the only mentions of Laurent online had seemed to be a few intense rants on the French subreddit about how figure skating judging was truly absolute bullshit if someone like Laurent de Vere was getting pathetic scores like that, and one frustrated comment about how for some reason none of the clips that were ever uploaded of Laurent skating seemed to stay up for more than an hour at a time. 

There was also a 'bio' page on the International Skating Union website. He was twenty years old this May just passed, Damen saw. His hometown was listed as Paris. The information on the page was sparse, with no social media provided, and the 'Profession' and 'Hobbies' sections left completely blank as well. There was a number under 'Personal Best Score Short Program' (Damen opened up another tab and searched until he found the world record. There was just over five points difference between the two. He assumed that meant it was relatively good.) There was, however, no number posted under the 'Personal Best Score Free Skating' section. It seemed, based on the list of International Competitions provided below, that Laurent had only competed once at the international level. It had been last year. And then he'd withdrawn after only performing one program, apparently. 

Laurent _had_ off-handedly mentioned a broken leg. 

Damen narrowed his eyes. The very first international competition he competed in, and he seriously injured himself at it? It was either terrible luck, or it was something a lot worse than that. Damen would wager that Laurent himself was under the impression that luck had had little to do with it, given how he was now seeking out protection before giving the international scene a second try.

A quick google search on this 'Berenger' uncovered more information about the prospective coach than there was available for Laurent. He was young for a coach. Just over five years older than Damen. But Damen supposed that figure skaters probably tended to have short-lived careers, so he could already have several years' coaching experience under his belt despite his young age. Unlike Laurent, Berenger had mutliple clips of his own competitions from years ago available on YouTube, and seemed to maintain a small online following of fans even now. Berenger's more recent mentions in articles tended to be in conjunction with a Belgian skater he was coaching, though, rather than relating to his own former skating endeavours. If Laurent was right about his chances of success both in securing the coach he wanted and in competing at a high level, Berenger might similarly find his name being thrown around alongside Laurent's soon enough.

Berenger was remarkably subdued looking in all of his photos, even the ones where he'd been caught in competition. From what Damen had seen, other skaters often opted for bright colours, and sequins, and _mesh_ of all things. (On the ice? Weren't they cold? Damen was used to having thick gear covering his body during games, so he could hardly imagine what possessed them.) By contrast, Berenger had seemed to favour outfits that had almost looked like street clothes. And dull street clothes, at that. Mainly different shades of brown, of all things. 

The aura Berenger gave off in person was much the same, Damen found when he delivered Laurent to the man's training rink the next day. If Damen actually looked long enough, he supposed he could see that the man was attractive enough, though he really wasn't Damen's type. But the trick was not letting his gaze slide away from the relatively plain man, because Berenger faded into the background as long as Laurent was standing right beside Damen in easy view.

"Laurent!" Berenger said when the rink staff called him over to consult on whether Laurent was allowed into what was clearly a closed practice session. He sounded shocked to see Laurent, but not annoyed, as Damen would have expected anyone who'd known Laurent long enough to know his personality to feel at the sight of him. "I had no idea you would be in the city. What brings you here?"

"What brings most people to an ice rink?" Laurent asked.

Berenger frowned. "You want to skate? I'm sure we can arrange it later, but right now we're in the middle of a session."

"Yes, I'm capable of seeing that. I was hoping to be part of those sessions in the future."

"You want me to coach you?"

"You are the best coach in the region."

"Not by much," Berenger replied, which Damen assumed was either overly humble or very complimentary to the competition, because Laurent seemed to be under the impression that Berenger was a particularly good coach, and Laurent didn't seem like someone who was easily impressed. "You could have picked up the phone first, you know."

"Could I really?"

Something passed in between them. Something knowing, to which they were both privy, but Damen wasn't.

"I didn't intend to take on another skater for the upcoming season," Berenger said. "But we're not technically at capacity."

"Lovely," said Laurent, as if it had been decided. Though he'd seemed to think it was decided before he'd even arrived here, Damen recalled. "I'll just watch the session to get a better feel for your coaching style, and then we can have a meeting to clarify a few things when you're done."

Berenger seemed to know Laurent well enough to realise it was useless to argue. Then again, Damen knew him well enough for that as well, and he'd only met the man less than twenty-four hours ago. He wouldn't call Laurent an open-book by any stretch of the imagination, but certain things about him were definitely immediately obvious. 

Berenger finally noticed Damen. It seemed that Damen wasn't the only one who had difficulty prying his attention away from Laurent.

"Berenger," he introduced himself. He didn't question who Damen was beyond accepting Damen's offer of his own name, instead simply taking Laurent's implied word for it that Damen was supposed to be there, and should be allowed to stay as well.

Apparently not everyone was so willing to let it slide. 

As Laurent made his way to the front row of the stands, with Damen following him, someone with long red hair and a pretty but slightly angular face – who Damen might have mistaken for a broader-shouldered woman at a glance if not for the incredibly form-fitting design of his training outfit leaving nothing about his gender to the imagination – angled himself to the edge of the ice, stopping at the boards right in front of them. Apparently, someone in this place was capable of immediately ignoring Laurent's presence, for he looked directly at Damen instead. "Who are you?"

"My name is Damen."

"No," the redhead snapped, "I meant who are you to _him_." He glared over at Laurent. "His boyfriend?"

"I wasn't aware it was your business, Ancel," Laurent said. 

Ancel. The name was familiar. Ah, so this must be the Belgian skater with whom Berenger was often mentioned in the media.

"It is if you're going to insist on shoving your way into the club. You should know that we're not supposed to bring distractions to the rink," Ancel pointed out. He spoke in rapid-fire French this time. Damen was more than fluent enough to follow along. Damen wasn't sure whether he should be thankful or regretful for that, under the circumstances.

Ancel looked to Berenger, as if expecting the coach to back him up about Laurent's flouting of the rules. Berenger's attention was, however, elsewhere. Damen could only call Ancel's reaction to that a pout.

Laurent shrugged. Also in French, he said, "I don't find him distracting. Do you? And here I thought your attention was already too well-caught to wander, speaking of potential distractions who are here at the rink. Though you can't exactly avoid having yours here, can you?"

Laurent looked pointedly over at Berenger, who was still too focused on directing one of the other skaters to be listening in, assuming he even spoke the language well enough to understand.

Despite the paleness of his skin, no flush showed on Ancel's cheeks. Either he was unembarrassed to be publicly called out for lusting over his coach, or it was already too widely-known to be an issue. "It's not you Berenger gives a shit about, you know. It was your brother. So don't expect him to favour you."

"My understanding is that Berenger is scrupulously fair. It was part of the reason I chose him. So I'm glad to hear it."

Ancel pushed away from the boards in a huff. Damen watched him go into a spin some ten seconds later. It wasn't as captivating, somehow, as when Laurent had done that at the other rink.

"Making enemies as soon as you arrive?" Damen asked, speaking pointedly in French himself. "I'm not surprised."

Laurent looked slightly taken aback. Obviously he hadn't realised Damen was capable of understanding the conversation. He'd better get used to not being able to rely on the language barrier for privacy. They were close enough to Québec that French was fairly widely spoken here.

"Your accent is atrocious," Laurent settled for saying.

No it wasn't, and Damen knew it. His tutor had grown up in Avignon, so Damen knew he had adopted barely any traces of the usual Canadian French accent that actual French people insisted on sneering at.

"And I'm not making enemies," Laurent said. Not on purpose, maybe, Damen thought. "This one came pre-made."

Damen wasn't sure how that would have come about. When would they have competed together before long enough to become rivals, if Laurent had only made it to half of a single international competition? Unless France and Belgium had some kind of regular joined skating competitions, sharing a border as they did, much like Canada and the States had the NHL for hockey.

Laurent seemed to realise what was going through Damen's mind (was he really that obvious?), explaining, "You'll find that I'm not the only figure skater who has recently tossed aside the French flag."

Oh. That made more sense. And the two of them looked much of an age, so they might well have come up through the junior levels together as well. No wonder there was already a rivalry. Especially when it was already so clear that they were both kind of bitches.

Laurent continued, "Ancel blames me for being overlooked once he turned senior. And he's probably right to do so. He was clever enough to realise that it would be foolish to continue to associate with me given everything that was going on, but just a little too late in figuring that out for his attempts to break ties to matter much. Not that it probably would have made a difference either way once his association with Berenger became public, since Berenger was always unabashedly vocal in his support of me. But it's hardly surprising that Ancel would rather blame his misfortunes on someone who was barely his friend years ago than on his current lover."

It probably didn't help that Laurent made himself an easy target for dislike anyway, from what Damen had seen.

After he'd checked over the office for risks, Damen was left outside while Laurent and Berenger had their meeting in the early evening after the practice had ended. Unfortunately, Ancel was waiting around for Berenger, and seemed to have no interest in keeping to himself the way Damen would have preferred.

"You're Canadian?" Ancel asked. His accent when he spoke in English was much heavier than Laurent's even though it seemed he'd actually been living in Canada far longer than Laurent had, Damen noted.

"Yes," Damen said. He should probably just remain silent and ignore him, but he couldn't see much point in being needlessly rude. Perhaps he could take lessons from Laurent on that, since they would be spending so much time together for the next few months, if not longer.

"And he's just arrived here," Ancel continued.

Damen did let that one go unanswered. He was Laurent's bodyguard. It was among his roles to keep Laurent's personal information, especially regarding his movements, under wraps.

"So how could you possibly have met long enough ago to be dating? He wouldn't jump into bed with a stranger. He's way too..." Ancel frowned, then offered, "Cold?" as though he wasn't certain it was the right word.

He likely meant 'frigid', at a guess. So far Damen would tend to agree with that.

Damen wasn't the best liar, he was told. He probably couldn't successfully convince someone who knew Laurent better than he did that they were lovers if he actually tried. So it was just as well they had a different story to fall back on. "I'm just his trainer."

"Hmm," Ancel said. 

Damen didn't know whether that meant he'd bought into it or not. He doubted he could be that lucky.

"You must be good." Damen thought from the way he'd said it that Ancel meant it as innuendo, though he did throw that at least somewhat into question by continuing, "He's in irritatingly good shape, despite his time off. Perhaps I should take you on too?" Smirking, Ancel waited a beat before adding, "As a trainer, obviously."

Regardless of how Ancel meant it, obviously Damen wasn't interested either way. "I doubt Laurent would appreciate that."

"Already exclusive? You move fast."

Thankfully, Ancel finally seemed to grow tired of interacting with Damen, whipping out his phone and silently messing about with it. He seemed like the type to be obsessed with social media. His Instagram was undoubtedly full of narcissistic pictures of himself. Damen supposed he could even be tweeting about Laurent's sudden appearance at his rink, which would put an end to any ideas of trying to keep Laurent's presence here under wraps for as long as possible. Which might have been exactly why Laurent had delayed getting in contact with Berenger, Damen realised; if they were together it would make sense to assume that Berenger would likely have told Ancel, who could have posted the information to the whole world before Laurent was ready for anyone - especially whoever he thought was after him - to know.

When Laurent and Berenger emerged, Damen heard Ancel huff, " _Enfin_ ," before scurrying off to take Berenger's arm. Damen wondered what the other skaters thought about their coach dating one of their number. But Laurent had mentioned how fair Berenger notoriously was, so perhaps they all just acknowledged the lack of favouritism on the ice and ignored it.

For his part, Damen similarly strode to Laurent's side, but most definitely didn't start clinging to his elbow like a debutante the way Ancel had done with Berenger. Once Berenger was out of earshot, taking Ancel with him, Damen said, "Ancel seems pretty set on the idea that we're sleeping together. I thought you said no one would ever buy that."

Laurent shrugged. "It hardly matters if there's a rumour about it and no one believes it. Only if it's the story we're trying to actively sell and people question it, because then they'll wonder why we'd be lying about that. We can play along with it or not, I don't care. And I won't stop you from dating or whatever just to keep up appearances, if that's what you're concerned about."

"Dating?" Damen said, amused. "How much free time do you expect me to have to meet and spend time with anyone while I'm on a full-time protection detail?" 

"You could always find yourself a figure skater," Laurent said. "Though I'd advise you to look to the ladies' singles, since half the pairs skaters and ice dancers are probably fucking each other."

"Who says I'd only be interested in the ladies? I offered to pose as your boyfriend, didn't I?" Damen countered. "Though if figure skaters are all like you and Ancel, I think I'll pass either way."

Laurent huffed, but it wasn't with displeasure. It was a laugh, however small.

When they arrived at Laurent's hotel room, Damen expected a maximum of a two-minute check to clear the place and then to be on his way, having successfully dropped Laurent off for the evening.

Damen was the first to see the wreckage. His grunt of surprise and the quick way he reached for the weapon at his belt alerted Laurent that something was wrong. Laurent peered around Damen even as Damen instructed him to remain back until he made sure that whoever had done this wasn't still there waiting. 

What looked to be every piece of clothing Laurent had brought into the country with him was savagely torn apart and sprinkled like confetti over the room floor. There were remains of broken items everywhere. Glass from the lamp glistened in shards beside the bed. Damen kept Laurent, who was standing in the doorway, in his sights while making his way over to check the bathroom (more ruined items there, and the towels were practically reduced to fluff) and the cupboards (empty but for a few half-dislodged clothes hangers). 

Well. If Damen had still had any reservations about whether Laurent was just imagining or overstating the threat to himself, this pretty much put paid to that. 

There were no signs of anyone still in the vicinity, though. Damen almost wished there had been, because at least then he could have chased down the fucker and got some answers, and maybe even taken care of the problem altogether if one person was as far as this went. But Damen wasn't quite that lucky, it seemed. Or rather, Laurent wasn't. 

Declaring it safe(-ish, considering the jagged materials scattered around), Damen finally allowed Laurent to come the rest of the way inside, warning him to be careful where he stepped.

"This doesn't matter," Laurent said faintly, clearly trying to convince himself of it. "I have all my skating gear either with me or in secure storage. The rest is irrelevant to me."

"It isn't if you don't want to walk around naked," Damen pointed out. "I doubt you have a lot of spare change for replacement clothing, do you?"

Laurent picked up a shirt with a few relatively small slashes in it. "It could pass as fashion, I suppose. There must be a few salvageable items. Otherwise I guess I could just wear my training clothes everywhere."

Damen immediately pictured Laurent with gaping holes in the material over his chest and abdomen, so that very little would be left up to the imagination. Less even than the workout clothes he'd been wearing at the rink the previous day. Damen's mouth was suddenly very dry.

"I was going to have to move into a more permanent place as soon as possible anyway, now that I've sorted things with Berenger," Laurent said. "I'll contact him and see about the availability of some kind of dormitory or other athletes' housing."

Whoever had done this had gotten past what must be decent security here, as this was actually a better hotel quality than he would have thought Laurent could easily afford, to be honest. Damen imagined Laurent had probably chosen to pay a little extra for the place precisely for that reason. And it still hadn't helped. How comparatively simple would it be to sneak into a dormitory where people were constantly in and out without any real form of monitoring? And even if Laurent conversely got some more private kind of housing to himself, that just meant there would be no one there to help if someone broke in while he was at home. This break-in could easily have happened while Laurent was here, alone, after Damen had already cleared the place and left. It could easily happen again under those circumstances in a different setting, if Damen allowed it to.

The contract Damen had signed hadn't been for twenty-four-hour protection. That kind of set-up was only appropriate when a multi-person team was assigned, which Laurent obviously couldn't afford. Damen was only one man. He couldn't be constantly watching Laurent. He had to sleep. But he supposed that he could do the next best thing, at least.

Damen sighed. Nikandros really was going to kill him, but: "You're not allergic to dogs, are you?"

Damen doubted it, since the legs of Damen's trousers always ended up liberally coated with dog hair before he could make it out the door, and Laurent hadn't sneezed once while around him. Laurent confirmed as much.

"Come on, then. You can't stay here, obviously. And my apartment is a two-bedroom anyway."

"You want me to stay with you?" Laurent asked.

"Want is a strong word," Damen said. "Let's just say that what I _don't_ want is for you to get killed just because you're a little too short on cash to take the precautions you otherwise would. And this will actually make it easier all around, logistically speaking." Though it probably wouldn't be easier on Damen's tolerance levels.

"I suppose I'm to reimburse you for this when I achieve an income as well?"

Damen hadn't thought of that, but now that Laurent mentioned it... "You'll pay for half the food upfront. You must have at least that much money on hand, if you weren't planning to starve while living on your own. Your half of the rent can be added to my fees, to be paid later. I suppose I can cover electricity and water as long as you're not a shower hog."

"This sounds like a very good way for you to lure me somewhere completely private so that you can assault or kill me."

"It's a relatively shitty apartment building," Damen said, laughing slightly. "I guarantee you that nothing about it is 'private' enough to commit a serious crime there. People can hear you talk through the walls if you do it at a slightly-above-average volume, let alone if there's a scream or smashing furniture. Besides, didn't you decide that there's no way I could be associated with whoever it is you're worried about?"

"Being one of his people isn't a prerequisite for attacking me," Laurent said. 

Damen didn't really know what to say about that, because Laurent said it as if he spoke from experience. What on earth had he been through before leaving France?

The silence sat between them for a good twenty seconds. Then, eventually, Laurent said, "Are you going to help me clean up this mess and get checked out of here so we can go to your place or what?"

Apparently, that was his version of profusely thanking Damen for his generous offer and accepting it humbly.

Damen looked skywards, as if there were a chance that some measure of strength might come from there. Honestly, what did he think he was getting himself into?

*

They had called the police on Damen's insistence and sat through statements and police checking over the room for what seemed like hours. They had eventually secured a police report so that Laurent at least wouldn't be expected to pay for the damages to the room. They hadn't bothered to stick around to try to salvage any of the scraps of Laurent's ex-clothing after all, because Laurent had grown impatient and decided he didn't need anything in the room as much as he needed sleep. The police were welcome to it if they wanted it, he'd said.

He apparently wasn't so in need of sleep that he didn't pause to greet Damen's dogs once they were at Damen's home. Ios and Marlas seemed to like Laurent on sight. Which… that part was fair. Damen had as well. Who wouldn't when he looked like that? But they didn't seem disposed to change their minds on closer inspection. Damen had thought they were smart animals, but it seemed he'd been wrong.

Though as he watched Laurent rub Marlas's belly, making his leg kick and tail wag happily, he wasn't sure he could fault them. Obviously, Laurent was perfectly capable of being bearable, or even likeable. Just not when it came to other humans.

He showed Laurent to his new room, and set about grabbing sheets and making up the bed while Laurent started moving every single item in the room around, as if he couldn't possibly be expected to just make do with the way Damen had seen fit to place everything. Once the bed was ready (and after Laurent had made Damen move that for him as well), Damen disappeared off to his own room to grab whatever clothing might be currently clean enough for Laurent's use. 

Damen returned holding out an old team shirt, which was far too large for Laurent, but would certainly serve for something to sleep in. "Here. It's better than nothing."

"You're kidding," Laurent said, looking at it like Damen was holding out a bomb rather than simple hockey apparel.

"Nope. I'll find you something better once I've done laundry, but in the meantime, this is about it. Unless you want to sleep in one of my unwashed outfits. Or naked."

Laurent snatched it from Damen's hand. "I can't believe my perfectly good clothing was all reduced to rags while _this_ was allowed to continue to exist in the world intact."

"Do you really hate hockey so much?" Damen asked. This went beyond some stupid figure skater versus ice hockey player superiority complex, surely. 

Damen didn't expect Laurent to answer. But after a long pause, he did. "My brother played."

Damen probably shouldn't have pried, but he asked anyway: "Family problems?"

Laurent's laugh was bitter. "You have no idea. But don't misunderstand. We were close. In fact, my brother was everything to me." The way he stressed the word 'everything', with a tiny almost (but not quite) imperceptible crack in his voice, was heartbreaking.

Because there it was again, just like with his mother: 'was' and 'were'. 

Clearly his brother had been an absolute exception to Laurent's general distaste towards people. Just as clearly, Laurent had somehow lost him, and didn't seem to have truly recovered from it.

Damen would have tried to find out more, like how long ago it had happened for the grief when Laurent spoke of it to still be so obvious, but everything about Laurent's closed-off posture and the way Laurent had spoken suggested that that was as much as he was willing to disclose. Damen let it drop. They might be going to live together temporarily, but it was fair enough if Laurent didn't want to have a deep-and-meaningful with someone who was for now still a relative stranger to him. And given what he'd said earlier, Laurent probably just wanted to sleep off the events of the last few hours anyway rather than staying awake rehashing his history.

Damen heard Laurent flick the lock on the bedroom door once Damen shut it behind him. Damen would never have entered the room without Laurent's permission anyway unless it was to get to Laurent if he was in danger in there (and, even when it was locked, Damen could still kick down the door easily enough to manage that if it happened), but he didn't begrudge Laurent the precaution. It was just as fair as Laurent's desire not to talk about his personal life. Trust was a thing that took more than a day to build.

*

Whoever had practically erased Laurent's presence from the internet hadn't done so with his brother, for the man was _everywhere_ once Damen knew to look for him. No sooner had he typed 'de vere ho-' than 'de vere hockey france' showed up as the first suggestion. There were plenty of English results in addition to the French ones, for this 'Auguste de Vere' had apparently been the Captain of the national ice hockey team of France, and therefore had been quite well-known on the international stage. Damen personally hadn't heard of him because he hadn't ever really followed the European teams. There had been a time when Damen had hoped that he might be in a position to play for his own national team one day, and he might have faced off against France at some point if he'd managed it, but in the end Damen's injury had forced him to retire from the sport before he could achieve anything close to the success that Auguste de Vere seemed to have had.

In addition to the news articles and fans professing their love for him, there were pictures of Auguste as well. So many pictures. The resemblance was obvious. Auguste wasn't quite as remarkable-looking as his younger brother, but there was almost always a smile captured where Laurent's face seemed to be rarely anything but flat or dour. Damen didn't doubt that the man had been the wet dream of every potential sponsor or men's magazine in France, and quite a few elsewhere as well.

The reports of his death were only in French, as if that event somehow hadn't been enough to catch the international eye even though his career and his appearance had been. It had been a concussion during a game. No wonder Laurent hated the sport. His brother was everything to him, he'd said, and hockey had taken his brother away. Damen couldn't help but think that it was rare that a player actually died of concussion these days, since the rules for dealing with a head impact were so stringent. But it wasn't unheard of. It was a dangerous sport. And this was in France, so Damen couldn't really speak for the specific safety measures that would have applied.

It had been six years ago, Damen noted. That was a long time for a brother to mourn so deeply. But then, it had happened when Laurent was only a boy of… fourteen? Thirteen? Too young to suffer such a loss.

Nowhere in the reports did it mention Auguste was survived by a younger brother, despite Laurent's assertions about their closeness. Damen supposed Auguste might have wanted to protect Laurent from the media hype that seemed to have surrounded him. Or perhaps that information had existed once, but had since been pulled from the internet along with practically everything else that might ever have been written about Laurent.

One article that Auguste was mentioned in did reference family in the form of his father, who'd apparently been quite a successful business owner in France. The article was actually about the father's death, Damen quickly realised. Aleron de Vere's passing had been entirely unexpected, the author wrote, just like the recent death of his famous athlete son Auguste. Their deaths were only a few months apart, Damen could see.

There was a picture forming in Damen's head. It wasn't a good one. 

Auguste, young and at the top of the world, probably wouldn't have thought to write a will to direct any of his surely expansive earnings from his sponsorships and the like in the direction of his younger brother. Why would he? His father was still alive to provide for the boy, and Auguste obviously hadn't expected to die. He had been twenty-five. Damen's current age. Damen certainly didn't have a will. Not that he had serious assets to leave to anyone, but still. In lieu of a will, the father would have presumably been Auguste's next of kin, so the money would have gone to him. An already rich widower made even richer, and with only an underage boy to survive him if he too happened to die. There had to have been quite a bit of money on the line. He would have seemed like quite the mark. 

Something was rotten in the state of Denmark. Or in France, as the case may be.

The fact that Laurent had somehow been left destitute despite seemingly being the last remaining member of a wealthy family was telling. Even if the inheritance was sitting in trust for him, awaiting a twenty-fifth birthday or some such, there should have been provision for his upkeep from those funds, and clearly there didn't seem to be. Was his trustee stealing from him? Or had the money straight up gone to someone else and Laurent was (surely rightly so) now threatening to legally contest that? Either way, Laurent's difficulty in rising through the ranks in his sport or finding willing sponsors in France suddenly made a lot more sense. There was likely someone out there who wouldn't want him to accrue enough money of his own that he could afford the legal fees required to take whoever else was involved to court. Six years; Damen wondered whether there was a statute of limitations on these sorts of things in France. If so, Laurent's time was probably running out.

Damen couldn't know the details for certain without asking Laurent, and he doubted Laurent would want to answer if Damen did. But Damen was nonetheless almost certain now that this wasn't a matter of a stalker potentially crossing the line. This was potentially worse.

If Damen hadn't already found himself embroiled enough in his suspicions to acknowledge that Laurent really needed someone to watch out for him, this would have done it. And that someone was going to have to be Damen, it seemed, under the circumstances. No one else was going to be willing.

He wasn't getting out of this strange situation he'd put himself into any time soon, was he?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As a disclaimer, this is entirely meant as a work of fiction. Yes, there are some references to real life trends in certain figure skating federations around the world, but I'm not, for example, implying the FFSG is actually guilty of corruption and accepting bribery in reality.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To anyone who read the first chapter before I changed the total chapter count, you might spot how the third chapter that I said could maybe happen is indeed happening. So there's still one more to go after this one! (Only one more, though, I refuse to let this reach four chapters.)

Over the course of the first week he spent guarding Laurent, Damen came to the realisation that Laurent was the type of person who would call a TV 'the idiot box' like Damen's grandfather had, if only that term was actually still in use. Just so that Damen couldn't possibly ever turn 'that brain-sucking piece of rubbish' on while he was in the house (which was always, since Damen was never home unless Laurent was there as well), Laurent spent his evenings reading books while sprawled over Damen's couch with one or both of Damen's dogs curled up beside him or halfway under his propped knees like _he_ was their beloved owner. And just in case Damen got it into his head to sit in the armchair instead and watch TV from there, Laurent took it upon himself to read aloud. It probably didn't hurt that Damen was fairly certain he enjoyed the way Damen clenched his jaw whenever he did so.

"The contract is on a weekly renewable basis," Damen reminded him after four days of this. "I could just kick you out on Sunday morning and be done with you if you insist on being unbearable."

Though technically the housing situation wasn't part of the contract anyway. And Damen was still too worried about Laurent's safety to do that anyway without a better reason than Laurent being irritating (especially since it wasn't like he hadn't figured that out within minutes of meeting him anyway). But Laurent didn't need to know that.

Apparently, Laurent did know that anyway. He showed no signs of stopping, nor of being concerned for his future safety come the end of the week. The only time he looked up from his book or paused in his reading was when Ios squirmed his way far enough up alongside Laurent to lick him on the chin, and Laurent's speech dissolved into laughter.

Damen stared. Auguste de Vere's smile might have put him on somewhat more even ground with his brother when Laurent was glaring or staring at Damen flatly, like Damen's very existence was an insult, but when Laurent smiled…

Luckily for Damen's sanity, Laurent seemed to quickly remember he wasn't alone with the dogs and caught himself, his smile fading away. Not so luckily for Damen's sanity, he started reading again.

He had a nice enough reading voice, so it wouldn't have been so bad if Laurent would at least read fiction. It didn't have to be the mindless pulpy rubbish that admittedly littered Damen's own bookshelves (because Damen usually read when he wanted to relax, not when he wanted to stimulate his mind or whatever Laurent was doing). He could read Melville or something, Damen didn't care. Just something with a plot. Or at least something that didn't set Damen's teeth on edge because it ran counter to everything Damen believed.

"That's such complete bullshit," Damen eventually couldn't help but mutter.

Laurent apparently heard him, because he stopped and asked, seriously, "In what way?"

Well, fine. If Laurent really wanted to know. It would feel better to listen to his own rant than some second-rate author's ridiculous opinions, anyway.

Laurent listened, as passive as Damen had ever seen him, and when Damen finished he said, "Well, you missed all the salient points, but gold star for effort, I suppose. Actually, _this_ is why this tripe is bullshit." And he proceeded to eloquently tear the contents of the books to utter shreds in a way that Damen couldn't really help but find interesting, even when he didn't entirely agree with some of what Laurent was saying. He was an opinionated bastard, but at least it was in an informed way. He was obviously very intelligent, and well-educated despite his apparent decision not to attend university concurrently with his skating like a lot of his current rinkmates seemed to be doing. Intelligent enough to have known exactly what he was doing when he'd picked these particular books up. It was very, very clear to Damen, suddenly, that Laurent had chosen both of the books he'd been reading since arriving at Damen's place not because they mirrored his own opinions in any way, but exactly because they were horrible, and he had to have known they would rile Damen. Damen probably should have guessed as much when Laurent had found it desperately necessary to drag Damen out of bed early enough on Monday morning to accompany him to the library even before he took to the practice ice for the first time.

"What books do you actually like?" Damen found himself asking.

"What makes you think I don't like this?" Laurent asked. "I find other people's stupidity amusing. Who doesn't like being amused?"

"You clearly think I'm stupid, and you aren't amused by me," Damen pointed out.

Laurent shrugged. "How would you know?"

Damen would have previously conceded the point, because Laurent seemed to be good at concealing his emotions when he wanted to, to the point that Damen rarely had a clue what he was thinking or feeling beyond being 'mildly annoyed'. But he recalled the open way Laurent had laughed, and gently pushed Ios's face and tongue away so he couldn't sneak in a second lick. That was what Laurent's _real_ amusement looked like. If he really was capable of hiding something that portraying a cold stare and the flat line of his mouth despite feeling just the opposite, giving away nothing, then clearly he should have gone for acting rather than figure skating. He certainly looked like a Hollywood star.

Damen had found himself thinking along similar lines earlier in the week. That really, if Laurent was as destitute as it seemed, surely he could have found modelling work with ease. Not in France necessarily, by the sounds of it, but here in Canada, or in the States, or practically anywhere in the world where this presence that seemed to be looming over his life had less direct influence. He wasn't just beautiful, but _striking_ , just as a model needed to be. He had the sort of face that could convince a man that buying a watch with a price tag into the millions of dollars was perfectly reasonable, because surely nothing less could suit such a man (though Damen knew for a fact that Laurent actually wore a plain black sports watch that couldn't have set him back more than ten dollars, and that somehow suited him perfectly). And while Damen wouldn't claim modelling was effortless work, at least once one could secure the jobs in the first place – which he didn't doubt Laurent could – there tended to be a definite paycheck at the end of each working day.

Sponsorships were different. They didn't take a face and advertise it. They took a face that would be seen and would advertise itself at events and just plastered their name all over it to get the benefits of that person being in the public eye. Laurent was right; he would require at least some promise of future fame for sponsorship to be viable. 

It was a harder path, and yet it was the one Laurent had chosen. So Damen had briefly found himself wondering: why? Why pursue something that only put him further into the red when he could have spent that time seeking out the financial stability he clearly needed? It didn't make sense to Damen. Damen had loved playing ice hockey, but not to the point of running himself into the ground and putting himself potentially deep in debt over it. Was Laurent just doing it to be contrary? Or just for the sake of trying to prove something. Those options both did sound like something Damen could see Laurent doing. And why else choose what had to be the hardest available path? Why work tirelessly, exerting himself right to the edge of human capacity, when it was all for just a shot at success? And when that success, even if it was achieved, didn't mean anything close to the unjustifiably massive income achieved by athletes at the top of more popular sports? 

But Damen thought he'd figured it out when he finally saw Laurent use his ice time for what appeared to be a run-through of part of some kind of routine, where before Laurent had only been practising specific moves in isolation or working on basic skating skills. When the movements threaded together into a flowing whole, Laurent himself came fully alive. There was no music playing – or rather there was, at a low volume in the background, but was clear that wasn't what Laurent was skating to in his mind – yet Damen could almost hear the matching chords in his head anyway, so vivid was the scene that Laurent was setting across the ice. 

Maybe Laurent wasn't as complicated as Damen had assumed. Maybe it really was just as simple as Laurent loving skating, and caring about it enough to sacrifice everything for it. Even if it was the harder path, with all the frustration it seemed to have put him through over the past few years, it seemed to really mean something to him. Enough that he didn't want to give it up or to divert his main focus elsewhere just because of a little hardship along the way.

Damen couldn't really help but admire that particular element of his character. That determination and drive. Knowing what he was willing to give up, and what he wasn't, and acting accordingly. Damen might have preferred not to appreciate anything at all about Laurent, but that was already a lost cause anyway, so it could hardly hurt to have one more thing about Laurent positively catch Damen's attention, he supposed.

*

Laurent's determination and drive led Laurent to train for an almost insane number of hours, which Damen could hardly believe was sustainable over time, but which Laurent insisted wouldn't be a problem to keep up. It was official, as far as Damen was concerned: figure skaters were delusional. Or at least Laurent was. 

Thankfully, not all of Laurent's endless hours of training were spent at the rink, where Damen constantly had to listen to the dulcet tones of French criticisms being levelled back and forth between Laurent and Ancel. Laurent seemed to spend hours working out on dry land as well, just as Damen and his team had done back when he had played hockey; the expense of ice time added up, after all, and a lot of fitness and generalised training could just as easily be done elsewhere for free. 

For Laurent, that seemed to mean running, circuit training, stretches to improve or at least maintain flexibility, and even what Damen had to assume was jump practice, though it looked a lot different than it did on the ice. Certainly when he was off the ice Laurent couldn't even come close to spinning four times around in the air before landing as they did on these 'quad' jumps that everyone seemed to be so obsessed with, from what Damen had picked up while Laurent practised at the rink.

Damen didn't directly watch him go about these sorts of activities, keeping his eyes mostly on the surroundings so he could watch for the slightest hint of anything that might put Laurent at risk. But some corner of Damen's mind, mainly subconscious, did keep track of Laurent's training. And filed away certain images he spied of Laurent throughout. Especially while Laurent was stretching, or doing yoga, or whatever it was that had made him rhythmically arch his back up and down in a way that had Damen on the verge of pointing out in case Laurent had forgotten that they were in _public_ ; that was permanently etched onto the inside of Damen's skull whether Damen wanted to remember every little detail of it down to the satisfied expression Laurent's face took on at the peak of the stretch or not.

"You're going to overwork yourself and get injured," Damen advised Laurent during his workout on Thursday evening, just half an hour after they'd left his third and final ice session for the day.

"I had to stay almost entirely off my leg for over three months not long ago," Laurent said. "I don't have the luxury of taking it easy if I want to finish getting myself back into peak condition by the start of the competitive season."

 _That_ still somehow wasn't his peak condition? 

"Besides, you do remember you're not actually my trainer, right? I didn't ask for your input on my training program. Though if someday I decide to make it my goal to end up looking like a grizzly bear on extra-strength steroids, I'll be sure to ask for your advice then."

Just for that comment, Damen started verbally pestering Laurent just like a particularly annoying personal trainer. Interestingly, it seemed like the sheer bull-headed desire to silently tell Damen to fuck off actually pushed Laurent to work harder when Damen was riding his ass.

Though… poor choice of words, Damen thought, trying to clear his brain of _that_ conjured mental picture. 

Eventually, Laurent paused in his training and seemed to size Damen up.

"Well if you're going to keep irritating me with your presence, you might as well be useful," he said. "Come here. You can spot me while I do some more complicated stretches and poses."

Standing close enough to be in reaching distance while Laurent contorted himself? Oh, this wasn't going to be good. Damen just had that feeling.

Just keep your focus on the surroundings, Damen reminded himself. Watch the potential dangers, not the client.

It didn't really help.

At no point did Laurent even come close to needing to be spotted. Of course he didn't. Damen was almost certain he'd been just testing Damen's patience. Or perhaps testing Damen's mental stability. Both of those things seemed just as thoroughly stretched as Laurent himself was at this stage.

*

Compared to being out in public during his other training or while running errands, the time at the rink should have been easier when it came to keeping Laurent safe. Damen had had Nikandros run checks for him on all the skaters and staff at the rink – without telling him why, but it wouldn't take Nikandros long to find out the truth, he was sure – and none of them came back with anything more worrying than traffic violations or one old minor drugs charge. The only ones with ties back to anyone in France were Ancel and Berenger, and Laurent vouched for the fact that there was no chance either of them had anything to do with whoever was posing a threat to him. If Ancel wanted to hurt Laurent, Laurent attested, then it was only on his own behalf, not because he was being paid to do it.

Very reassuring.

But on the other hand, even though the checks would suggest Damen supposedly didn't have to view every one of the skaters and others present as potential high-grade threats, background checks weren't foolproof. And most of them were wandering around with weapons strapped to their feet, with upwards of fifteen of them on the ice at a time. It would only take one well-constructed collision to slice something vital right open, and Damen would just bet that could be ruled an accident easily enough. So it wasn't like he could just lean back and waste his time playing Hockey Nations on his phone while Laurent got on with business. He had to watch.

He found that by watching he was learning quite a lot about figure skating without even meaning to. But mostly he was just learning how often figure skaters fell down. Laurent must be liberally covered in bruises. Damen should probably invest in some ice packs or something.

Not that he cared. It wasn't his job to protect Laurent from himself, even if he did have to wince every time Laurent took a fall that he didn't immediately spring back up from as though it had never happened in the first place. 

After the last ice session of the week on late Friday afternoon, Laurent stayed back for another meeting with Berenger. Damen cleared the office for them, then hesitated outside the door once they'd gone in.

Ancel had flounced off somewhere this time instead of waiting around for Berenger to finish up. The staff were quickly out on the ice, preparing it for the Zamboni. Everyone was accounted for and the danger was minimal. Damen could probably have just slipped back into his now-usual spot in the bottom row of the stands and taken the opportunity to relax for ten to twenty minutes, for once. Instead, curiosity as much as duty had him remaining propped just outside the office Laurent and Berenger were meeting in. 

"– just days apart. Are you sure you want me to sign you up to both?" Damen could hear Berenger saying.

Laurent answered, "They're practically in the same time zone. It's not like I'm going to be suffering from jet lag. Just do it, please."

"It's not just about that. Back-to-back competitions are exhausting. How about you go to Finlandia instead of the U.S. Classic?"

"Yes, because plane tickets to Finland are so cheap from here."

"I'll pay for your tickets, if that's the only problem."

"No. You're giving me a year's worth of free coaching. That's enough."

"I have money to spare. It's not doing me much good sitting in my bank account untouched."

"Then spend it on Ancel. I'm sure he'd appreciate it. He does love shiny things. So much so that his costumes are always an eyesore, but I assume he has better taste in real jewellery."

"I mean it, Laurent. It isn't fair that you're in this position, and I'm telling you I can do at least a little bit to help."

"You're only saying that out of some sense of duty to Auguste. But you were his best friend, not his brother's keeper. Let it rest."

"I do also genuinely like you and want to help, you know. It's hard enough for anyone but the top couple of skaters to even cover costs in this sport, and that's without having to pay for a bodyguard to trail around after them all the time. That's an extra cost you shouldn't have had to bear. Can you even afford it?"

"Don't worry about it. It's taken care of."

There was a long pause. "Don't tell me Ancel was actually right that you're paying him with sex."

"Trust Ancel to come up with that. No. I've promised to pay him once I get the money."

"Christ, Laurent, how long is that going to take? Even assuming you win the Challenger Series overall, the take for that was only a few thousand USD last I saw. Surely that doesn't cover a full-time bodyguard for however long you're going to need him?"

"It's a start. But the point is to hopefully entice a sponsor or two, and more importantly, to get the Canadian Federation to sit up and take notice of me. If I'm assigned to even one Grand Prix event, first place would get me around twenty thousand."

"If you win," Berenger pointed out.

"Do you doubt that I can?"

"Not that you _can_. But you know as well as I do that anything can happen on the day, no matter how well-prepared or how talented you are." 

"How pessimistic of you. Ancel must be rubbing off on you. Excuse the choice of words."

"It's a lot of pressure to put on yourself."

"I'm hardly a stranger to that. And do you think the pressure would somehow be less if I _didn't_ have someone whose job it is to watch my back?"

Their meeting wrapped up shortly after that. Laurent looked mildly surprised to see Damen still standing directly outside the door, but he didn't comment on it. 

Most days Damen and Laurent would talk on the drive back to Damen's apartment, to fill the silence if nothing else, though Damen actually did find that he enjoyed it. Mostly. But today Laurent seemed deep in thought, sitting in the passenger seat staring out the window while some easy listening song playing on the radio provided the only noise between them other than the hum of the car. 

Damen considered bringing up the possibility that Laurent might not, by the sounds of it, be able to afford his services after all. Damen had set his daily rate cheaper than what he would usually ask for in deference to both the likely long duration of the contract and Laurent's financial circumstances. But even at a discount, personal security wasn't cheap. And even if Damen waived the rent Laurent had half-offered to pay, Berenger was right; a few thousand dollars wasn't really going to cover three months of full-time work. Even if Laurent won one of those other events he'd mentioned – the higher paying one – how was Laurent going to proactively resolve the source of his problems if all of his funds were going into either paying for reactive protection or funding his skating? He'd have to win event after event after event. Damen had seen with his own eyes that Laurent was the best skater at his rink, and was all-around _good_ , but was he one of the best couple of skaters in the world? Damen wouldn't know that until the bigger competitions began and he saw what the competition was like. It was a long time to just take things on faith.

But…

'It's a lot of pressure', Berenger had said. Did Damen really want to heap even more on him by suggesting that Damen might have to leave him without protection after all?

Damen remembered Laurent's face when he'd surveyed the devastation of the hotel room, coming to terms with the idea that he hadn't been safe even where he slept, and almost everything he seemed to have owned was now gone because of it.

So Damen decided not to say anything.

Laurent, however, did it for him.

"You were listening in earlier, weren't you? You don't have to worry. As long as you make sure I safely get through to the end of at least one international competition, I swear you'll get paid, one way or another."

Laurent sounded so absolutely certain that Damen found himself mostly persuaded. And whatever twinges of doubt or questions he might have about what Laurent actually _meant_ by that, he allowed them to be pushed down for now, to be dealt with if and when it became relevant rather than forcing Laurent into an unnecessary confrontation when he was probably already stressed about it.

* 

Laurent's steps didn't even stutter in the slightest when he spotted Nikandros, who had just stepped through Damen's front door. He just gave Nikandros a long look as he sauntered past through the main room, making his way to the kitchenette to grab a snack from the fruit bowl. It was a challenging look, Damen thought, as if he were pushing Nikandros to comment on him being there. 

Nikandros certainly would, but not to Laurent's face. At least not until he was given cause to realise just how much Laurent didn't care for politeness anyway.

Damen was a little surprised that it took Nikandros the better part of a week after Damen asked for the background checks to show up at Damen's house. He came on Friday evening. He arrived without any warning, but only because they never really bothered calling ahead to each other when they were just stopping by each other's places on the way to or from somewhere, not because he was trying to launch some sneak attack. He'd been hoping to catch Damen at home, sure, but probably not expecting to catch him _out_ to the extent that he did.

It wasn't exactly unusual, to say the least, for Damen to have a second person in his apartment. And usually that would have been Nikandros's cue to leave. But Nikandros must have at least strongly suspected Damen was on a job, considering he'd asked for the checks. And he knew that Damen hardly ever found time for his personal exploits when he was working. Not since Jokaste. These days that sort of thing was relegated to days off and the stretches between jobs only, as a general rule; partly to avoid unwanted distraction, and partly because he just didn't have the time or energy otherwise. Not unless he wanted to settle for a booty call that consisted of little more than a five-minute handjob and an exhausted collapse into bed (and Damen had a reputation to uphold, so _that_ didn't really appeal). 

But even if Laurent's presence in the apartment during a job, contrary to all of that, wasn't a giveaway to Nikandros that something about this situation was different from Damen's usual flings, the fact that Laurent wandered out of the spare bedroom rather than Damen's room would have sent alarm bells ringing in Nikandros's mind. Especially when Laurent left the bedroom door hanging open. The view into the room clearly suggested he'd made himself properly at home in there. Even worse, any argument Damen might have made that this was just some casual houseguest, nothing to see here, would seem to be countered by what was recognisably Damen's hockey shirt being balled up on the floor (where Laurent probably thought that particular item of clothing belonged). 

The details all came together to tell an interesting story, Damen was sure. Just not one that he'd prefer Nikandros in particular bear witness to.

"That's one of the figure skaters I ran a background check on," Nikandros hissed the moment Laurent had returned to his room and shut the door. 

And there was the last nail in Damen's coffin.

Damen hadn't actually asked him to look into Laurent, but Nikandros was thorough, so when Damen had emailed him a list of every person who frequented a certain ice rink during their closed figure skating practice sessions, of course Nikandros would have checked to make sure Damen hadn't missed anyone. And of course he was going to then find the newest skater who'd just joined the club. His report on Laurent had been remarkably sparse for Nikandros's standards. Apparently, Laurent's information wasn't just missing from the internet, meaning whoever was bothering him must have some serious power or money, or both. Damen hadn't been overly surprised by the dearth of information, but Nikandros would have been. Of course that would have made Nikandros take particular notice of Laurent's file, and remember his face. 

Or Nikandros might have just taken one look at his picture and mentally noted him down as potential trouble where Damen was concerned. Either way.

Carefully enunciating every word, Nikandros asked, "Is that your _client_? Are you _fucking_ your client?"

"Yes to the first, no to the second. I'm not fucking him."

"Yet."

"When have I ever been that unprofessional with a client?"

"When have your clients ever looked like _that_?" Nikandros countered. "Give him back whatever advance he's paid and I'll find him a referral before you do something _really_ stupid. Honestly, Damen."

"He hasn't paid me an advance," Damen said. "And it isn't that simple."

Nikandros narrowed his eyes. "Are you protecting him pro bono? And letting him stay at your apartment? This just keeps getting better, doesn't it? There's next to no information to be found on him, you know. He could have established a false identity I couldn't pick up on that dates back a year or two to cover up a list of crimes taller than you are, for all you know. And even if he didn't, he's obviously using you."

"He's not using a false identity," Damen said, though honestly, he had nothing to base that on except gut instinct and the strong resemblance to the pictures of Auguste. "And he's not trying to cheat me. I insisted on him staying here when his hotel room was broken into and trashed. And he's paying me later."

"Sure he is. If you really can't see how likely it is that he's some kind of grifter, then you've been blinded by his blond hair and his blue eyes."

"I'm not fucking him. Why would I want to? He oscillates between having the personality of a snake or a honey badger, depending on his mood."

"Cold-blooded and/or incredibly vicious, you mean? Because that doesn't sound at all like your type."

Damen didn't appreciate the sarcasm.

"He isn't Jokaste," Damen said.

"No. Jokaste didn't string you along, at least. Maybe you're not sleeping with him, but that's probably even worse, because then there's no getting it out of your system."

"He needs protection, Nik," Damen insisted. "And I'm the only one who's going to agree to the only terms he can provide."

"Because you're the only one fool enough to, obviously," Nikandros said. "Look, I'm not your boss. I can't make you drop him as a client. But I would _strongly suggest_ you do yourself a favour and move on to a different job. In fact, I'll find you one myself."

"Thanks," Damen said. "Your suggestion is noted."

Nikandros sighed. "On your head be it."

Nikandros said that, but Damen knew there was an exactly zero percent chance that he would leave Damen to deal with it alone if everything went to hell and Damen crashed and burned.

"Nikandros Delpha, right?" Laurent asked when he emerged once Nikandros was gone. Damen just bet he'd been listening in, but it would be hypocritical of him to call Laurent on it, considering. "He's the head of the personal security firm that Lazar was pointing me to as his first choice, before you came along."

"Lucky you ended up with me, then," Damen said.

"Really? I think I would have preferred him, actually."

Damen choked on nothing but air and disbelief.

*

Most days Laurent went to the rink twice, or even sometimes three times. Saturdays were the exception. Not that Damen could rightly call it a 'day off', because Laurent probably wasn't aware that such a concept existed in the world. Laurent had many faults, but laziness wasn't one of them. Not by a long shot. 

Unfortunately, his indomitable drive seemed to mean that on the first Saturday he was living in Damen's space, he'd thought it was a good idea to wake Damen with the sound of loud classical music filling his very non-classical apartment in the early hours. It had been a shock to Damen's system. So had been emerging from his room to find Laurent practising ballet, complete with pointe shoes, using the kitchen table like a poor man's ballet barre, though Damen doubted it was actually the right height for it. But Laurent seemed accustomed to making do, and this was likely no different. 

"Don't they have classes for this? At an actual dance studio or something?" Damen asked. "You know… not in my apartment at seven-thirty in the morning on a day when there's no need to get to the rink early?" 

He was surprised none of the neighbours had shown up at the door to yell at Damen for waking them up with music so early on a Saturday, for that matter. As if he could control what Laurent did.

"They do," Laurent conceded. "But classes cost money."

That really seemed to be an ongoing refrain in Laurent's life. Figure skating was an incredibly expensive sport, from what Damen could tell, at least at the higher levels. Damen couldn't really dispute the point, so he'd let Laurent get on with it, though he mourned the loss of his sleep.

By the third Saturday of the same routine, Damen was getting somewhat used to it. What he wasn't used to, though was Laurent taking time between his ballet moves to write notes on a notepad. It seemed to be some kind of plan. 

"I need to knuckle down and finish coming up with my free program today," Laurent explained when he saw Damen looking at him, his brows slightly furrowed.

Damen had picked up, through his attempts to research Laurent and his observations at the rink, that skaters did two programs at an event: a short program plus a longer and higher-value free skate. Apparently, Laurent was reusing the short from the previous season, since he'd barely had an opportunity to skate it in the first place before the injury had taken him out for months on end. For some reason, though, it seemed he hadn't opted to do the same with the free.

"You're composing it yourself?" Damen asked. "I thought there were people for that."

"Choreographing, not composing," Laurent said. "I'm not creating a piece of music."

Damen managed to stop himself from saying something incredibly ridiculous, like that it looked as though that was exactly what Laurent was doing when he was really in his element on the ice. 

Laurent pointed out, "Choreographers are expensive. But I wouldn't have handed this over to have someone else construct it regardless."

He didn't elaborate on why. 

Though when he switched the music over to what Damen had to assume he intended to skate to, Damen thought he had an inkling as to why it might be.

The song was completely different to anything he might have expected Laurent to skate to. The classical music from earlier would have been a more likely suspect, or some kind of pensive instrumental number perhaps, or even some angry-sounding music that practically exuded the same kind of barely-contained spite that Laurent sometimes did, if Laurent were really looking to make a distinct impression on the judges and the audience. Not this upbeat pop-rock song. And it had _lyrics_ , which Damen was given to understand was still considered fairly progressive and unusual as far as much of the figure skating community was concerned. Though the lyrics were in French, so at least that part made some measure of sense.

Laurent would have made a decent dancer, Damen thought, especially if he devoted as much time to developing himself in that field as he did with his skating. But the movements he was trying to reproduce were clearly meant for the ice and weren't as smooth on the ground. Laurent seemed frustrated by the difference, or perhaps by the general difficulty of translating what was clearly in his head into actual motion. Frustrated might be putting it too mildly, actually. Damen had never seen Laurent look the way he did for the five straight hours that he slaved away, trying to figure out every movement down to the tiniest flick of his fingers. Obsessed, Damen would call it.

A program Laurent was specifically crafting to get himself to the place where he seemed to believe he could be, if not for whatever – or whoever – was holding him back. A program that had to be absolutely perfect. A program skated to a song that Damen wasn't sure Laurent himself would have picked.

At some point, following a hunch, Damen shazamed the song, then put the song title in with Auguste de Vere's name. There was more than one result. He'd mentioned it was his favourite song of all time in some varietal interview. Damen's 'favourite of all time' changed by the minute, but apparently Auguste's didn't, because Laurent wouldn't be relying on some offhand interview answer. To be skating to it like this, he would have to know for sure that his brother had favoured it. 

Laurent clearly wanted to honour him with it; a tribute to the fallen.

Damen watched Laurent toil over it, and felt a twinge of pain on his behalf.

*

Attempts to run through the program on the ice went better. Laurent seemed to more easily get his body to do what he intended, which left him more open to identifying the changes that would be required to get it to that 'perfect' stage he was obviously striving for. 

Though Laurent did still get frustrated, especially with his left leg, which Damen was fairly certain was the one he'd broken in the later months of the last year. It wasn't his dominant leg, but he had to use it take off from the ground in some of his jumps, and he was finding it difficult to 'get the fucking edge right', if Damen had overheard correctly.

"What was that supposed to be?" Ancel called out, laughing, just after Laurent had managed to barely remain upright on a wobbly landing. "It'd be a compliment to call it a flutz. And you're half a turn short on the rotation as well. Pathetic."

"And what would you call that spin you just did?" Laurent countered. "Level 2 at best?"

Ancel scowled.

Berenger sighed. He wasn't actually oblivious to their sniping, Damen had eventually realised, but he tried not to get involved with the petty dramas and rivalries among the skaters, or even to detract from the attention he was giving to the skaters he was in the middle of actively working with by paying much mind to the others until it was rightfully their turn. Even when it was Ancel. Perhaps especially Ancel, actually. 

Laurent quickly disregarded the mistake and moved on to his steps. The jumps, Damen realised, weren't currently Laurent's main focus. He supposed that would come later, once the structure was properly in place. Damen personally would have thought Laurent could just do smaller jumps as placeholders while he worked through it, but Laurent didn't really know how to do anything by halves, so there was no point in anyone suggesting it. Damen doubted Laurent would have paid heed even if it came from Berenger rather than Damen, who admittedly still didn't really know what he was talking about when it came to figure skating anyway.

Damen noticed that it wasn't just the jumping Berenger wasn't stepping in to help Laurent with, though. While he assisted Laurent in fine-tuning his short program, with the longer one he mostly left Laurent altogether alone to work on it as he saw fit. Based on what Ancel had said the day Laurent and Damen had first arrived at this place, and what Damen himself had heard pass between Berenger and Laurent, Damen could fairly easily intuit that Berenger had probably known Auguste well enough to know what Laurent was doing, using this song. Damen assumed that once Laurent had reached a stage where the choreography was right, Berenger would slide in to help fine tune his technique and the like for the free skate as well, but for now Laurent was on his own, just the way he would want it.

That thought didn't sit right with Damen, somehow. Yes, this was clearly a very personal thing to Laurent. He'd made it clear that he wanted to do it himself. That all he needed was time to think it through and to find a way to make it work how he wanted. But Damen would like to think that Laurent felt supported while he was doing it, by more than just whatever ghost of his brother had lingered behind in his mind. And he'd also like to believe that someone would call Laurent on his shit if he was at all harming himself with this obsession.

If it wasn't going to be Berenger…

But Damen shouldn't be concerned with that. It wasn't integral to Laurent's safety, and therefore wasn't what Damen's job was about. So he really didn't know why he cared so much in the first place.

*

It was lucky, really, that Damen had to accompany Laurent on his runs, because at least that gave Damen enough exercise that he wasn't eventually going to end up out of shape and incapable of protecting anyone. And he had free weights in the apartment. He'd thought Laurent would insist that Damen should move those into his bedroom so that they weren't in the way, but Laurent strangely hadn't said a word about it when Damen left them in the main room and did his exercises out there. Maybe he thought he didn't have any room to argue about it considering he did his ballet out in the main room as well, but Damen wouldn't have thought a little thing like an obvious double standard would stop him. But Damen couldn't remember the last time he'd gone over a month without a single swimming session, and he couldn't exactly do that with Laurent there, even if Laurent were inclined to agree to join him. It would be hard to provide watchful protection for someone when Damen's face was plunged under the water.

So Damen had gotten Laurent's permission (he hated thinking about it that way, but it was accurate) to call in Pallas early on Saturday mornings – when Laurent was apparently intent on making Damen wake up near dawn anyway – so that he could watch the apartment while Damen went to the pool. 

"He's Lazar's friend," Damen said when he was trying to sell the idea. He left off the 'with benefits' part. Laurent knew Lazar. He'd probably guess as much anyway, especially when he saw Pallas.

Archly, Laurent had asked, "Is that supposed to recommend him?" But he'd agreed to it anyway.

The first time seemed to go well enough. Pallas arrived before Laurent even emerged from his room, and Damen arrived back an hour and a half later to find Laurent casually going through his ballet workout just as he normally would. 

Pallas himself had looked a little shell-shocked at the sight in front of him, but all he'd had to say about it was: "Figure skaters." And Damen definitely understood exactly what he meant.

The second Saturday morning he was taking off didn't go quite so seamlessly, for Damen ended up waking Laurent before he left.

It was obviously Damen's cursing up a storm that drew Laurent from his bed. In retrospect, Damen ought to have been more careful about that, in case Laurent heard him and thought something was legitimately wrong. Something worse than the fact that Damen was having a wrestling match with a shirt and seemed to be losing.

"What is it, is there –" Laurent's half-panicked voice cut out only a moment after Damen heard his bedroom door open.

It took Damen at least another five seconds to finally yank the shirt down past his broad shoulders, and even then, it sort of snagged above his chest for a moment until Damen determinedly tugged the hem the rest of the way down. Damen saw Laurent watching him with an odd blank expression on his face. Repressed fear? Damen hoped not. He hated to think he'd worried Laurent that much over his stupid reaction to a minor problem.

"Sorry. I didn't mean to wake you," Damen said.

"I… all right," Laurent said, as if he wasn't certain what else he should be saying. 

Laurent? Lost for words? Damen must have still been asleep and dreaming after all. That impression was backed up by the fact that Damen could see Laurent had apparently finally given in and was wearing Damen's hockey shirt to bed, as if it no longer disgusted him to quite the same extent as it once had. If it wasn't a strange and pointless dream, then either Damen's pro-hockey arguments were beginning to have an impact or Laurent was getting _truly_ desperate when it came to the clothing situation.

"It's a brand-new shirt," Damen explained. "I must have picked up the wrong size without realising it or something. Do you want it? At least it'll probably fit you."

"Yes," Laurent said, his voice strangely distant. "Take it off and give it to me immediately. It looks ridiculous on you. You can't wear that in public."

Damen frowned. "Well it's on now. And I'm only wearing it to the pool and back at barely after the crack of dawn, so I doubt anyone's going to care. I'll give it to you after the next round of laundry."

"After you've gotten pool chorine all over it? Besides, you'll stretch it out in the meantime," Laurent said, his voice gaining some gusto. "It's been weeks since I've had anything but training clothes and underwear that actually fit me. Hand it over now before you ruin it."

Damen frowned. Should he have offered to buy clothes for Laurent? Would that have been any more successful than Berenger offering to pay for Laurent's flights that one time? 

But no. That wasn't at all the kind of offer a bodyguard was supposed to make to his client, especially when said client was already getting progressively deeper into debt with Damen as it was. It wasn't even the kind of offer he should have briefly _considered_ making, because it shouldn't be occurring to him as an option. He probably shouldn't be offering to give this shirt to Laurent either, even though the gesture cost him nothing, since it didn't fit him anyway. It just wasn't really the done thing, and as Nikandros would remind Damen, that was for good reason.

Damen had always had a bit of a problem anytime the words 'should' or 'supposed to' were bandied around, though, even in the privacy of his own mind. He didn't like being limited like that. 

Sighing, he crossed his arms over in front of him and grabbed at the bottom of the shirt, lifting upward. It was considerably easier to get the thing off than it had been to get on, though it still took longer than it should. Once he was free of it, he held it out to Laurent. It took Laurent a moment to reach out for it, like he didn't even notice that the item of clothing was being offered to him. Eventually, he took it between his index finger and thumb. It was as if he didn't even really want it. After he'd just made Damen strip off so that he could have it, too. 

He could at least show a little bit of gratitude once in a while, Damen thought as he wandered over to his cupboard to track down another shirt. Strangely, he didn't hear Laurent leave the room until after Damen was properly dressed and was grabbing for the bag that he would be taking with him.

*

Apart from Saturday ballet 'classes' in Damen's apartment, usually when Laurent did his training outside the rink, it was at the park. Generally he wasn't disturbed by anyone, probably because he looked far too intense for the average person to think he might do anything other than bite their heads off if they tried to interrupt him. 

One day, however, Laurent nearly got clocked in the head by a stray frisbee. Damen managed to snatch it out of the air just in time, but it was a near thing; that hadn't been the type of threat he'd been actively watching for, after all. Laurent stared at him for a long moment. Damen wondered whether he was impressed with Damen's reflexes. Damen really couldn't tell these things with Laurent.

The groups of kids who'd thrown the frisbee were apologetic enough, but Laurent didn't actually seem bothered. To the contrary, he offered to show them a few frisbee moves of his own, claiming it would be a welcome change of pace. Which was surely the first time Damen had ever heard Laurent admit that his training might be something he could occasionally want a break from. Damen watched in awe as Laurent demonstrated nearly pin-point aim and, more astoundingly, had his lips curled up slightly in an almost-smile while he had to hurl himself full pace after one of the kids' misthrows. 

Damen had concluded from watching him with Ios and Marlas (who he was convinced liked Laurent even more than they did Damen these days, the little traitors) that it was just humans Laurent didn't like. But no. That was too broad, apparently. He seemed to like smaller humans just fine. It was only adults he detested. Though not Auguste. And possibly not even Berenger, who Laurent didn't seem to mind at all. And there was that female skater, Vannes, who Laurent didn't try to get rid of when she tried to spend time with Laurent at the rink when they weren't on the ice, gossiping in his general direction and occasionally even drawing a small smirk to his lips.

The list of exceptions certainly seemed to be growing, Damen thought.

Still, Damen wasn't quite sure how to mentally compute both how good with the children Laurent seemed to be and how happy spending even a short amount of time with them seemed to make him. He tried to push the whole thing out of his mind. 

It was easier that way.

*

Damen had almost begun to think that his constant presence alone might be enough to act as a deterrent and ensure Laurent's safety. That was too good to be true, it seemed.

Laurent had been staying with Damen for nearly six weeks when trouble finally came to the apartment. Though it wasn't _in_ the apartment so much as in the garage underneath the building. The tires of Damen's car had been slashed, and there was spray-paint up the side pronouncing a slur that really should have died in the '90s (or never existed at all, actually). 

"It's another warning, like the hotel room," Laurent said. "I somehow doubt that I'll be given a third."

"It could be unrelated," Damen said. "This could have been put there by anyone. True, we haven't been playing up the 'boyfriends' angle, but we're living together and spend all of our time together, so it's simple enough to come to the conclusion that we're a couple. It's probably just dumb kids who saw us together and decided to repeat something they heard their bigot parents say. "

Laurent shook his head. "Those are some of his favourite words, I'm sure: 'it must be a coincidence'. No one ever wants to see the links."

Yet another reference to this mysterious figure in Laurent's life. Damen was aching to ask for details, but he knew pressing Laurent against his will would do Damen no real good.

"I see them," Damen assured him. "It's my job to see them. But it's also my job to consider all the alternatives. So I'm just trying to –"

"I know what you're trying to do," Laurent interrupted. "It's just not working."

"What would work?" Damen asked. 

Laurent shook his head. "Just make sure what happened to those tires doesn't happen to me," he said flatly. "That's all I really need from you."

Damen didn't think that was all he needed by a long shot. But the key words were likely 'from you'. It would be arrogant of Damen to assume he could provide anything that Laurent required except a safer environment than he would otherwise have. That was what he was there for, wasn't it?

What did Damen think? That he could give emotional support to this man who seemed to entirely lack emotions most of the time? Damen wasn't trained for that. He dealt with physical well-being, not the mental type. 

But Damen couldn't quite deny that he still _wanted_ to. He wanted to reach out, and provide some sort of comfort, to whatever degree someone as prickly as Laurent would accept that. He wanted to do whatever it took to ease away that emotionless mask.

Shit.

* 

"Downgrade it to a triple," Berenger instructed firmly. 

Berenger always had a serious tone. He wasn't one for laughter and joking around with his skaters. Yet it was rare that he ordered them around. He gave advice and it was up to them to heed it or not. This time, however, something about Berenger's voice suggested it was more than that. Berenger obviously didn't want Laurent getting needlessly hurt on his watch.

That was something he and Damen had in common.

Laurent made a frustrated sound. "It's been ten months since the injury. My knee should be back to normal!" 

"It doesn't always work like that," Berenger said. "If you're worried it hasn't healed as well as it can, I can arrange an appointment to check it out. Otherwise, you're just going to have to give it time for you to readjust your technique to compensate. It won't happen overnight."

"I don't have that kind of time," Laurent said. "And I need more points than a triple will give me."

"Almost everyone starts out with their programs at a lesser difficulty at the smaller comps and works up from there," Berenger pointed out.

"Almost everyone," Laurent repeated pointedly.

Berenger's jaw was clenched, but there wasn't really much he could do if Laurent wouldn't listen to him. This wasn't hockey. Berenger couldn't just make him ride the pine when he backtalked.

"Even so, you still have a little over a month before your first competition, don't you?" Damen spoke up. "Don't panic."

"I'm not panicked. I'm annoyed."

"Well that's obviously not helping either."

"Did I ask you?" Laurent snapped.

Damen managed, barely, to hold his tongue. It wouldn't do any good to get Laurent more ticked off at him than usual. Laurent was more than capable of making Damen's life difficult, and he was in the perfect position to make that happen however and whenever he liked, since Damen didn't even get to take a break from him or have his own space anymore.

"Fuck it," Laurent announced to the rink at large. "If the quad lutz isn't working, I'm doing a quad loop instead."

That was quite possibly the closest Damen had ever heard Laurent get to giving up on something. 

"Really? There's a reason hardly anyone bothers with the quad loop. The lutz is worth more," Estienne said from a few feet away, where he was grabbing a drink from his water bottle. It wasn't said disparagingly, like Ancel would have said it, for Estienne was clearly desperate to be acknowledged by Laurent, since he was a much better skater than Estienne himself, and wouldn't dare say anything to potentially alienate him. Damen respected Ancel's tactics more, to be honest. And Laurent's, for that matter. There was something to be said for being upfront, even if it involved being an overly-negative dick about most everything.

Laurent said, "It's not worth more if I can't rotate it properly and it gets downgraded to a triple anyway. And it's not like I never land the quad loop in practice. I just need to work more on landing it _well_ , and more consistently. Which I'll only have the time for if I focus on it instead of the fucking disaster of a lutz."

The main thing Damen took from all of that was that Laurent was acknowledging that he did have limits and working with and around them rather than just trying to push through them against all logic. Damen couldn't say it didn't make him relieved to see and hear that. Sometimes, watching Laurent beat himself up when things didn't go just the way he wanted, Damen had caught himself wondering (and, yes, worrying) whether Laurent would be able to handle it if he didn't meet his own expectations after all. Despite all the damage that seemed to have been inflicted on him already, Laurent clearly couldn't be considered fragile by any objective standard Damen would willingly use. But everyone had a breaking point, even him. This seemed to be a positive move away from that point, in Damen's opinion.

Miraculously, Damen also had to admit that most of what they'd all been talking about actually made enough sense to Damen that he understood the details. It likely wouldn't have a month ago. Damen had spent far too many hours here watching skaters and listening to Berenger call things out to them. They were all so focused on their jumping that Damen heard the words fired back and forth near-constantly. Not that he'd recognise the difference between the jumps when he saw them in action, but he at least knew their names, and roughly where they fell on the spectrum when it came to the points they would be awarded. 

Not to mention all the time Damen had spent listening to Laurent nearly-rambling about his programs. Though Laurent claimed he did that more to elucidate his thoughts aloud than for Damen's sake, because he considered a hockey player's input to be 'inherently useless on anything relating to skating'.

Damen pointedly chose not to reveal to Laurent how he'd stopped being annoyed by such comments and - just as he did with the other things they verbally sparred over - almost started to enjoy the arguments about their respective sports that tended to ensue. Laurent would probably mock him mercilessly for it if he knew, so Damen could only hope that Laurent never realised just how much Damen had come to like those moments between them. 

*

Laurent had to change out his skates so his current pair could be adjusted before the competitions began, he announced. Which apparently meant a trip to the storage locker where Laurent was keeping his past skating costumes and other currently-unused gear. 

If one wanted to understand Laurent in broad strokes, Damen supposed they only really needed to look as far as the fact that he would relatively happily pay to keep his figure skating items in storage just to keep them extra safe, but he wouldn't 'throw away money' on buying a few items of clothing that actually fit him to replace the ruined ones. Not sensible to the average person, but it made perfect sense coming from Laurent, in Damen's opinion.

Laurent carried his skates with him everywhere, so there was no real need for Damen to check them over for him on a regular basis. This pair, however, Damen had never laid eyes on, and they'd been out of Laurent's sights for nearly two months as well. Secure storage or not, Damen could hardly vouch for what condition they'd been in prior to that. So he checked them over now, for a sabotaged skate could easily be career-ending, if not worse.

Damen was utterly meticulous, to the point where Laurent commented, "I'd prefer you didn't break them. They're expensive," when Damen tugged determinedly at the blades to make sure they hadn't been loosened from the boot, or the metal purposely fatigued, or anything similar.

"If they can break just from me pulling at them with my bare hands, you can't expect them to hold up to the ridiculous acrobatics you do on the ice."

"I don't know about that," Laurent said. "Bare hands or not, you're very… strong."

Laurent's blades didn't budge, though. 

Damen pushed his hand into the right boot, not really expecting to find anything amiss inside. Surely the blade would have been the better target if anyone was going to bother messing with the boots in the first place.

He flinched when he pressed down on the insole, a slight grunt of surprise more than anything escaping him. There was something sharp in there. Damen withdrew his hand. The tip of his middle finger was tinged red, the drop of blood increasing quickly in size.

Laurent stared at the small injury with wide eyes. "Hospital," Laurent managed to choke out. "Now."

"What?" Damen asked. "It's just a pinprick." Which would have been terrible if it had gone into the ball of Laurent's foot with his entire body weight bearing down on it, no doubt, but Damen's finger would stop bleeding shortly. Danger averted.

Laurent didn't seem to think so. He grabbed at Damen's arm, tugging at him, as if he thought he could drag Damen despite Damen outweighing him by a considerable amount. Damen let himself be dragged, though.

"You don't know him," Laurent was saying, a hint of desperation in his voice.

No, Damen certainly didn't. He still didn't know who the man Laurent kept obliquely referring to even _was_. 

"It could have been poisoned. That would be just like him."

"I feel fine," Damen said. But he'd worked in personal protection for several years now. He'd heard of people trying some weird shit to hurt each other. It would be idiotic to ignore Laurent's concerns until he keeled over dead from his own stubbornness when a simple trip to the hospital should be enough to clear things up.

The emergency room was packed when they got there. But the triage nurse heard 'possibly poisoned' and acted accordingly. Damen's heart rate and blood pressure were fine, though. He didn't feel faint. He didn't feel nauseated. The skin around the puncture wasn't changing colour or swelling at all. There was really nothing to indicate that anything had been basically injected into him. When Damen explained what had happened, it was clear the nurse thought they were overreacting (and perhaps that Laurent had some paranoia-related disorder), even once Damen explained that he was a bodyguard on duty. She took a blood sample to be tested in case it was something slow-acting and told Damen that he should remain in the emergency room where there was help close at hand for at least two hours to wait and see if any symptoms did develop, just in case, but it seemed clear she didn't think anything would happen. Neither did Damen, to be honest. The injury to Laurent's foot had he, say, landed a jump with that skate on his foot would have been enough to take him out of commission for a while. Poison would have just been overkill.

"I'll call Pallas to accompany you to the rink while I wait here," Damen offered.

"Fuck off," Laurent said. Damen would almost have thought that Laurent might be admitting to being legitimately worried for Damen, but then Laurent added, "What would be the point? It's not like I have any skates I can wear anyway." Oh. Of course.

"Yeah. You're not touching those." Even if they removed the needle or whatever had been inserted, and checked them over, Damen wasn't sure he'd be willing to trust those skates, knowing that someone who wanted to hurt Laurent had held them in his or her hands and could really have done anything to them. "We'll get you new ones for tomorrow." 

Laurent shook his head. "They're custom. It's not an overnight thing. I'll have to order another pair as backups anyway, but the skates I've been using up until now will be back before the new ones arrive. I'll just have to wait."

He said it like it wasn't a big deal, but Damen knew otherwise. Laurent was insistent that he needed every scrap of ice time he was allowed to get his skills and his programs to where they needed to be. Several days off the ice wasn't something he'd accounted for. 

"How the fuck did someone get to my skates, anyway? In a storage locker no one should have even known I was using at that?" Laurent asked, his voice cast too low for anyone in the waiting room but Damen to overhear, though it was clear that he was agitated despite his lack of volume. 

"It might have been before you locked them away, if those weren't the skates you were actively using up until then," Damen pointed out.

"Right," Laurent said. "So they could have been sabotaged before I even left France, like some timebomb set to go off whenever I made a change, regardless of where I went or what I did in the interim. I'm not really safe anywhere, am I? Not on a different continent, not at the rink, not even inside the apartment building of a man who looks like the last person on earth that anyone with a brain would want to mess with. Well it's not like he hasn't attacked me where I've been skating before, though he was more direct about that. And this certainly would have done the job as well. What am I supposed to do if I can't even trust my _skates_?"

He was clearly frazzled. He'd been under a lot of stress, Damen knew. Dealing with the imminent threat against his safety. Trying to adjust to a new country, and new skating facilities, and a new coach. Living with someone – a stranger, at first – when it was clear to Damen that Laurent had been on his own for quite some time, despite his still relatively young age. Trying to perfect a program that embodied everything he felt for his beloved older brother who'd been taken from him far too soon. And now this additional danger to both Damen and himself. If nothing else, to have his skates - which Damen suspected had become something of a symbol to him over the years - used as a weapon against him was probably not something Laurent could easily bear. 

Damen had known it was all wearing on Laurent to a point. This, it seemed, was the last straw for him. 

Damen didn't really think twice about it before reaching across, and putting his arm around Laurent's shoulders, and pulling him into Damen's side. It wasn't exactly comfortable in the plastic hospital waiting room chairs with the gap between them. And maybe Damen wasn't the optimal person to be dealing with this. But he was the one who was there, so he'd better at least do his best.

Laurent was stiff against him at first. Damen almost thought he would be pushed away, and that Laurent might even launch into a rant about taking liberties. Instead, by increments, Laurent seemed to sag slightly into him. He only allowed Damen to hold him there for maybe a little over a minute, but it was a minute longer than Damen had expected. He hoped Laurent got _something_ from it.

He even let himself speculate for a second: maybe Damen could join Laurent's list of exceptions to the people he couldn't stand? Maybe they could get to the point where Damen wouldn't have to feel like Laurent was just barely allowing it when he tried to offer some measure of support outside the protective detail. Not quite yet, perhaps, but eventually.

"I'll check absolutely everything that's been out of your sight for any amount of time before you touch it from now on," Damen promised him. "Including your usual skates once you get them back. I'll make sure no one can get to you that way, don't worry."

Damen was also going to have to get someone else to help him, because the constant protection detail had been grating at him as it was, let alone if Damen was going to have to upgrade his vigilance to a higher level. He would need breaks from that. There wasn't really any alternative at this stage.

Nikandros wasn't going to be happy when Damen asked for Pallas on a more consistent basis. It was one thing when Damen was just asking for a favour from Pallas himself once a week, but this was going to need Nikandros's clearance. Damen was going to owe him so many hours of work to make up for it. And he was probably going to have to promise to actually follow all of Nikandros's orders for a while too instead of just using his own best judgment instead. (Ugh.)

"If you're checking my skates, it'll just be something else," Laurent pointed out. "I doubt he'd bother just repeating himself over and over. It's not his style."

Who _was_ this 'him' that Laurent was so worried about? Damen really wished he could just burst out with that question and get a straight answer to it. But now probably wasn't the right time for that, unfortunately.

"Then we'll just stop _that_ too," Damen swore. "We're talking a finite period here, aren't we? There's an end goal here, beyond just taking part in a skating competition or two. If you tell me what it is, I'll find a way to get you to that point." Whether it was one figure skating season, or the length of court proceedings. Whatever the case, there had to be some stage at which there was no point in attacking Laurent anymore. Some point at which Laurent should be safe. Otherwise Damen didn't know what Laurent (and Damen, by extension) was supposed to be fighting for.

"That isn't your job," Laurent pointed out.

"Isn't it? What's my job, then, if not to make sure you get to your destination safely?"

Laurent drew in a low breath. It was much-needed, Damen could tell. "Not here," Laurent said, with the implication that they could talk about it later, presumably when they got home. 

Damen wasn't sure when he'd started thinking of the apartment as Laurent's home as well. 

Nikandros was right. Damen was in far too deep here. But Nikandros hadn't been right about Laurent. Damen grew surer of that with every day that passed. Laurent wasn't just using Damen for the sake of it.

There was far more to this than that, even if Damen couldn't say exactly what that 'more' entailed.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a heads up, there's a part in this chapter that implies the possibility of past sexual assault. It's less explicit than anything similar in canon though, and brief.

That evening, once they'd arrived home from Damen being checked over in the hospital, Damen gave Laurent about ten minutes to come to him first. When there was no indication that it was going to happen, he gave up and went to Laurent instead. It wasn't that he wanted to _force_ Laurent to talk, but it was getting difficult to protect him properly and look out for his interests when Damen didn't entirely understand what the threats actually were. And Laurent _had_ implied that they could deal with it later.

He knocked on the closed door to Laurent's room (not Damen's spare bedroom anymore, Damen noted, just as the apartment seemed to be as much Laurent's as his own these days). When Laurent pulled the door open, they looked at each other for a long moment, both assessing. Laurent looked about as calm and composed as could be expected. More so than he'd been in the early stages of when they'd been waiting side-by-side in the emergency room, at least assuming that it wasn't just a face he was putting on to shield what he was really feeling; Damen never could be entirely certain of that. 

Damen just waited silently. Laurent could close the door in his face if he really didn't want to do this. But Damen hoped that didn't happen.

Laurent eventually pushed the bedroom door he'd been clinging to the rest of the way open. Instead of stepping out into the main room, though, he stepped backwards, making room for Damen to come into his room.

It was strange, being in Laurent's space. Damen hadn't really been in here since the first night when he'd brought Laurent back to this apartment. Back then, the room hadn't yet been stamped with the hundred or more little signs of Laurent's occupancy that Damen could see now. It had been very different.

It was stranger still to sit on the edge of Laurent's bed. This was where Laurent _slept_. Did he burrow sleepily into these covers, similarly to how Marlas and Ios tended to curl themselves into whatever spaces they could find alongside Laurent's body when they wanted to take an evening nap while he read? Did he lie with his limbs splayed in some position that would be incomprehensible to anyone other than a figure skater, dancer or gymnast, but that somehow managed to be the height of comfort to him? Did he lie on top of the covers instead because he found it too hot in the late summer air to be beneath them, with the hockey shirt that Damen had seen for himself that Laurent had now taken to wearing to bed riding up in his sleep, exposing the full length of his toned legs and possibly more?

Damen had to give himself the mental equivalent of a slap to the face. He had to stay on track, he reminded himself. This was important. 

Laurent himself sat down at the foot of the bed, cross-legged and facing Damen. 

"It's my uncle," Laurent said.

It was such an unexpected thing to say that it took Damen a moment to even realise that Laurent was answering his unasked but obvious question about who had been targeting him. "Your _uncle_?"

Damen had thought perhaps his father might have had a business partner or a former underling that might have seen their chance to take over, or something of that kind. Even in all of Damen's early thoughts about wills and the like, it hadn't really occurred to Damen that this might be a family issue. After all, Laurent's mother, father and brother all seemed to have passed, and surely he wouldn't have been left financially unsupported if there had been any other relatives who remained. Family didn't abandon each other like that. Family didn't try to physically sabotage each other and damn near mentally torture each other, either.

Or they _shouldn't_. But Damen didn't doubt that Laurent was telling the truth, even if it didn't make sense in the context of Damen's own experience and worldview. But Laurent had no reason to lie about it to Damen when he could have just continued to hold the information back instead.

"Yes. My uncle," Laurent confirmed. "I can see you find that difficult to understand. Don't let the fact that we're related fool you. He cares for his current power, and to a lesser extent his wealth, far more than he cares about me at this stage. Whatever use I ever had to him, it's long since passed, and now I'm nothing more than an unwanted hindrance. And for my part, I'm not letting him get away with taking anything else away from me regardless of any… _connection_ that there might have ever been between us. I'm not going to let him stop me from getting what I want in the future, either, if I have anything at all to say about it. I'm done just letting him direct the course of my life."

"He's the one who bribed the French figure skating federation to stop you from achieving what you should and earning anything from your skating?" Damen clarified.

"Yes. Though to be clear, my desire to succeed in skating has never been about the money," Laurent said. "It's not that kind of sport. I only need money so that I can keep skating."

"And so that you can protect yourself," Damen pointed out.

"That too," Laurent agreed. "I got lucky there. Don't think I don't know it."

Damen had never thought he would hear Laurent imply that he considered himself lucky to have met Damen. 

"I'm assuming your uncle inherited your family fortune instead of you?" Damen guessed. "Otherwise you could have easily hired a whole agency to guard you. You don't seem like the type to have burned through that much money before the age of twenty."

Laurent shot him a knowing look. "Been doing your research on me, have you?"

Damen didn't deny it.

"You're partially right. My uncle received the maximum amount that he legally could, which is half," Laurent said. "He shouldn't have received even that. I'm almost entirely certain that the version of my father's will that was executed is a forgery drafted to my uncle's specifications. I can't actually prove it, of course, since the will was apparently filed correctly, and my father's lawyer from that time has 'mysteriously disappeared' so that he can't provide evidence to the contrary. Unfortunately for my uncle, no matter what tricks and fake documents he might get the courts to acknowledge as valid, French law provides that as my father's sole surviving dependent I was guaranteed half of his estate regardless of what the will says. So Uncle couldn't just disinherit me and favour himself entirely. It wasn't possible. But, not being a fool by any stretch of the imagination, he at least used the fake will to limit my ability to inherit by having my share be held in trust until I'm twenty-one."

"With him as your trustee, I'd imagine," Damen said darkly. He'd wondered if Laurent had been in a situation of that kind; reliant on a trustee who was supposed to be looking out for his interests, but instead only cared for his own.

"Of course. He couldn't possibly let there be some aspect of my life that he didn't directly control, could he? I'm sure he wishes now that he'd set the trust to pay out when I was even older instead, but considering I was only fourteen at the time, obviously he thought himself capable of making me give up my rights to it long before now. And he's certainly given it his best try. He's been effectively holding my career as a figure skater to ransom; unless I legally renounce the inheritance that I'm supposed to have coming my way nine months from now and let my fortune lapse to him, he'll never allow me to achieve any success or acknowledgement in the sport. Figure skating has for years been the one thing I had left in my life that I really cared about. Which is probably why he continued to pay my way through skating for a few years after my father died. He had to make sure there was something he could hold over me, and what else could it have been but the one thing that still meant anything to me? The one thing, that is, apart from making sure he doesn't just get whatever he wants. _That_ means quite a lot to me as well. So I'm not inclined to oblige him, even if it means I have to fight tooth and nail just to be allowed to skate."

"And obviously he didn't like that," said Damen.

"That's putting it lightly. Despite everything he was doing, last season was finally going to be the breakthrough for me, I was sure," Laurent confessed. "It was the Olympics. The one year in every four when success might be considered more important than money to even a corrupt Federation, because suddenly the spotlights of the world would be shining on a sport that usually gets ignored by most people. Every country wants the acclaim of one of their own walking away with Olympic gold. And regardless of the lower scores they'd been arranging for me to be given in exchange for my uncle's bribes, the Federation had to have known I stood a better than decent chance of medalling, if they would just score me _properly_ at Nationals for once and grant me France's spot at Olympics and Worlds. With Ancel already having switched to representing Belgium by that time, I was really their only viable option for success in the men's event. It was my one clear shot. Uncle must have seen that as that just as clearly as I did. So he took that shot away from me, just like he does with everything. He found someone who _could_ still be paid off to keep me from success. 

"I hadn't bothered with the smaller competitions like the Challenger Series up until then, since it would cost money I didn't really have to spare to get to them and they didn't really lead anywhere by themselves. But they're the only international competitions where each country's skating federations don't fully dictate which of their skaters can attend. So I decided to prove myself and give myself a good international track record so that the Federation would find it harder to ignore my existence come Olympic selection time. I did fairly well in the short program. I was on track to get what I wanted out of the competition. I was even feeling a little bit smug about it. That should have been my first hint that I'd fucked up somewhere along the line. My uncle would never allow me to feel like I'd actually accomplished something for long.

"It was twenty minutes before the morning free skate practice was supposed to start, and I was the last one of the male skaters to make my way out to the rink itself. In retrospect, I should probably have known better than to find myself in an empty locker room at a foreign venue, but it hadn't occurred to me at the time that my uncle would possibly go so far as to arrange to physically harm me. Or that there would be anyone in that part of the building who I might have to fear, since the preparation area wasn't exactly open to the public. I didn't account for some minimum wage cleaning staff. Or someone posing as cleaning staff under an assumed name, more to the point. Something-or-other Govart. I can't recall the first name, though it hardly matters, since it was fake. The police couldn't find a trace of him afterwards, of course, so I never did find out his real name. Probably for the best. I would only have gotten myself arrested going after him, most likely. And it's not like I really want to have to ever see him again." 

Laurent lapsed into a thoughtful silence, his brows slightly pinched.

"He hit you?" Damen prompted gently.

"Not at first. He didn't need to. He was about twice my size. Bigger even than you, or wider at least. I suppose you would have no idea how it feels to just be grabbed and thrown down like a ragdoll, like you're nothing, and not have any chance of defending against it. People have been telling me since I moved to seniors how surprisingly strong I am for my size, but you wouldn't have known it then. He was so _fucking_ large, I just…"

Something terrible was building in Damen's chest, because this didn't sound like the kind of story where the next steps in the sequence would be 'and then he broke my leg, the end'. 

Laurent tried to play it off like it was, though. "Anyway," he said with forced dismissiveness, as if such a poor attempt at flippancy could just wipe away all of this coiled tension that made Damen wish like hell that he could punch this unknown assailant until he was choking on his own blood. "It wasn't quite a tire iron to the leg, but trust my uncle to learn from the failures of history and arrange something a little more effective. A few stomps left me with a fractured tibia and substantial tearing to both my MCL and ACL. He was probably told to go for my right leg, but he didn't exactly seem clever, so it's not surprising he got it wrong. Even so, the injuries were certainly enough to put me out of commission until well after Nationals, where they selected for the Olympics and other competitions. So my uncle won."

"No he didn't," Damen insisted. "You're here, still trying. And you're going to succeed, aren't you?" 

"Mmm." It was the first time Damen had ever heard him sound noncommittal about his chances of success in the future. But he realised that wasn't what Laurent was thinking of, actually, when Laurent added, "He still did win that battle. He proved I couldn't just outthink him, or outwait him either. It was naïve to think I could. He's been manipulating people for decades longer than I've been alive, after all. And in addition to keeping me from succeeding then, he sent a pretty clear message about my chances in the future as well; if I kept resisting, or got close to getting what I wanted without giving him what he wanted as well again, next time he'd make sure it would be permanent. There would have been no one in France I could have convinced to guard me against that, even if I'd had the money for it. I don't think he expected me to use my dual citizenship, since I hadn't already. I'd always wanted to represent France, since that's what Auguste did. But Auguste wouldn't have wanted me to stay under Uncle's thumb, or to be kept from doing what I loved, just for the sake of a flag."

"But now you're worried that he can still get to you here as well."

Laurent nodded. "I know he can. He's proved it already, hasn't he? The hotel, and your car, were a reminder that he can get to me anywhere, and an attempt to get me to back off before I forced his hand and he had to take it further. But the skate boot tampering was different. After years of involving himself in it, he understands figure skating well enough to be able to predict around when I would have to swap out to my spare skates. I'd say that it was timed so that it would only hurt me if I ignored the warning shots. On my own head be it, he would have said."

The way Laurent spoke of it made it sound as though half the point was that if Laurent _had_ been injured by the boot, he would have at least partially blamed himself for it. As if it was somehow _unreasonable_ for him to want to both inherit what he was owed (or less than he was owed, even, by the sounds of it) and to perform in a sport he loved. 

Damen felt sick even just thinking about it. 

"I don't understand, though," Damen said. "He's already inherited a fortune. Is it really this important to him to double it? Or to stop you from having money?"

Laurent's smile was more of a grimace. "It's the pharmaceutical company that's the issue. My father's business, before my uncle claimed it for himself. Most of the family money is tied up in that. Uncle can't afford to just buy out the portion of the company I'll inherit. So the moment I turn twenty-one, I'll be moving to have the company sold off so that I can receive my percentage. I can't do anything about the other assets he's already received, or the money he'll receive from the sale, but I can live with that. It isn't the money he wants anyway. It's the power and position. Do you know the sorts of shit the man who controls what drugs and research come out of the biggest and most profitable pharmaceutical company in Western Europe can pull? How many important people do you think know someone with some currently incurable or undertreated disease that they desperately want someone in the industry to pledge to work on? And when that's not enough, then yes, there's always money, but it's that ability to hold something over people that really gives him the influence and the rush of power he really desires. More than enough influence to have kept grinding me under his heel."

"Until now," said Damen.

"That's the hope," Laurent acknowledged. "Within the year, as soon as humanly possible after I turn twenty-one. I want to see him yanked off that pedestal of his."

Damen might never have met the man, but he thought he would really like to see that as well.

"Though I do, of course, have to _make_ it to twenty-one for that plan to come to fruition," Laurent acknowledged. "So far, he's limited himself to attempts on my health, both mental and physical, but not on my life. But he's still had time left on the clock. Now that time is running out. I can't be sure how far he'll go, knowing that." Laurent shrugged, as if he weren't discussing the possibility that his own uncle might want to murder him. "I mean, it would be simple enough for him to forge some documents to say I renounced my inheritance if I wasn't alive to contest that fact, I'm sure."

Laurent was quick to add carelessly, "Don't worry, though. If that happens, I do have professional athlete's insurance. It's the one thing other than my figure skating gear that I refuse to cheap out on. After Auguste, I learned that things don't always go according to plan when you compete in a dangerous sport, and that's even without having someone actively trying to sabotage you. But my policy is based on projected lost earnings, and therefore hasn't been worth much of anything up until now. That's why I said that you'd get paid no matter what as long as I got through my first event. As long as I can log some International-Skating-Union-acknowledged scores that are among the top in the world, my anticipated worth in prize money and potential endorsements will go up significantly. So then you could claim my contractual debt to you against the insurance payout easily enough. Though I'd prefer you didn't just let me die straight after that just so that you can get paid, obviously."

" _Fuck_ ," Damen croaked out, shocked. "Don't even joke about that."

"I wasn't," Laurent said. "I pay my debts."

"If you died, it wouldn't be the _money_ I cared about, Laurent, damn."

"Wouldn't it?" Laurent asked. "Then why are you here?" 

Caught out, Damen could only deflect. "I live here."

Laurent rolled his eyes. "Clever," he said, making it clear he thought it was anything but. "Then let's rephrase: why am _I_ here in your house, being provided personal security by you, if not for the money? You work for me. It's a contract for money, ultimately, though I'll admit the money is delayed in coming. That was the arrangement. That's what brought us to this point. If you don't care about getting paid, then presumably you don't have much incentive to protect me. Which is a problem for me, as you can surely imagine."

"I have sufficient incentive. More than sufficient." Damen didn't elaborate further.

Interestingly, Laurent didn't try to make him expand on that answer either. He just said, "I hope so. Because as I think we've just established, you might well be the only thing keeping me alive and safe."

"And I will continue to do so," Damen swore. "That's the last thing you should be worrying about."

Laurent made a strange noise that Damen couldn't really decipher. Silence reigned between them for longer than was comfortable. Eventually, Laurent said, dismissively, "You wanted the story. You've got it. I think we're done here, don't you?"

Damen couldn't deny that the sudden coldness was hard to swallow, especially on the heels of Laurent sharing so much about himself. But perhaps that was the point; Laurent had just opened up. Now he needed distance to recalibrate.

Damen nodded, though unhappily, and left him to be alone with his thoughts like he obviously wanted. 

The door shut firmly behind Damen, though it wasn't a slam. Damen didn't hear the lock engage either.

*

Damen was more careful than ever in guarding Laurent after that. If even Laurent's skates could be used against him, then everything could be a potential hazard, and Damen treated it as such.

Those levels of paranoia, though perhaps justified, weren't particularly healthy for a bodyguard to be constantly living with, and Damen knew it. So it was clear that he needed to start taking occasional breaks. Not several days off at a time to fully decompress, like would be expected during most long-term protection details, but at least more than just an hour and a half each Saturday morning. 

When Damen had to ask to 'borrow' his best employee for such a purpose, Nikandros had heavily implied that Damen should at least do himself the favour of spending the time off getting laid so that he might stop obsessing over his 'client' (and yes, Nikandros had said the word in a way that even through the phone managed to convey implied air quotes). After Pallas had arrived on Friday evening to watch out for Laurent while Damen would be elsewhere, Damen actually considered it. He went to a bar, even. It was a sports bar, granted, but that hadn't usually stopped Damen in the past. Places like this often had at least a few people – male or female, it could go either way, or both, depending on what sport was showing at the time – who had the kind of strength and athleticism that Damen thought might suit him right then. 

Yet no one there caught his fancy. Once he'd decided that, he even ended up scrolling through the long list of contacts on his phone for about two minutes before sighing and giving it up. None of them interested him.

No need to speculate why, really. 

If he'd found someone who'd intrigued him, Damen would have gone back to theirs, or to a hotel, for a few hours, then apologised and explained that he had a job to get back to. Not very classy to leave midway through the night like that, Nikandros would point out, but better than taking them home with Laurent there. And Damen had done much worse than call it an early night like that during his younger years, when he'd been heady on his own anticipated success as a hockey star and thought he owned the world. If Damen thought Laurent had disliked him on sight when he'd met him a few months ago, he could only imagine how much Laurent would have _hated_ Damen back then. 

Perhaps it was for the better than Damen didn't even come close to lapsing back into bad old habits, then.

So when Damen went home after whiling away a few hours at the bar, he did so alone.

Laurent was still awake and out in the main room when Damen arrived back. He looked Damen over for a few long seconds, his eyes flicking from Damen's boots to his face. It reminded Damen vaguely of something he'd watched on one of those detective-who-practically-has-superpowers crime procedurals. Like Laurent was taking in all the evidence and coming to a conclusion. Damen didn't know about borderline-superpowers, but Laurent was more than intelligent enough that he could probably figure out just by looking at him where he'd been tonight. He probably had a beer stain on his ankle or something, for all he knew.

Laurent didn't end up commenting about Damen's night though. Instead, he asked, "Are you trying to set me up to change bodyguards? Because Pallas suggested I'd be seeing him in a few days, and I don't think he meant Saturday morning as usual."

Damen was a little surprised Pallas had spoken of that to Laurent. Or spoken to him at all. He didn't think he'd ever seen the two of them actually exchange words directly. Which he supposed was fair enough. What did they have in common that they could talk about casually? Lazar? No wonder Pallas kept it absolutely professional. Unlike Damen.

"I'm not trying to get rid of you," Damen assured him. "I'm just trying to take a few breaks to make sure I'm well-rested and clear-minded enough to do the job right. It's standard procedure."

"Standard procedure," Laurent repeated flatly. "Really."

Well no, nothing about this was _really_ 'standard'. But taking a few hours off every couple of days was probably the closest thing to standard procedure Damen had achieved since he'd first offered to open up his own home to Laurent. Damen explained, "It's to make sure I can keep you properly safe. It doesn't do either of us any good if I'm too burned out to catch a sign of danger."

There was a long pause before Laurent said, "Fine. As long as you understand; I don't want a different primary bodyguard. I want you."

Damen swallowed heavily as he processed those three words.

Fuck. Damen was in _trouble_.

Though Laurent quickly distracted him a little from his pounding heart by adding, "After all, I've already trained you to my liking. Why should I have to go to all that bother with Pallas, or with someone else?"

Right. Damen wasn't sure if he should be thankful for Laurent's bluntness or not. At least, he supposed, it somewhat diverted his thoughts from the other thing.

*

"My costumes are here."

It was said with such gravitas that it caught Damen's attention. Even though he'd been there at the time, he'd been keeping watch on the surroundings more than anything, so Damen hadn't paid much attention to the progress of the costumes during Laurent's fittings, and hadn't even so much as seen the design concepts. Now he was getting the impression from Laurent's reaction that he probably should have been paying more attention to this.

Damen understood what the big deal was the moment he saw the costume that was clearly supposed to be worn during Laurent's free skate.

"Laurent," Damen said, his breath leaving him like he'd been punched in the gut.

It was undoubtedly cut more like a figure skating costume than like what it was supposed to represent, cut in tight around the waist and dramatic flowing material over the arms and hips. But it was just as undoubtedly a figure skating version of one of the hockey jerseys in which Damen had seen Auguste de Vere photographed.

"You hate hockey, though," Damen said. As often and as passionately as Damen had tried to convince him of the merits of the sport, and despite how Laurent had eventually given in and started wearing the hockey shirt Damen had given him to bed, Damen doubted that Laurent had suddenly done a one-eighty on the sport to the point of wanting to profess his love of it to the world in a skating routine.

"Of course I do. It's a pointless, dangerous sport." This said by the man who willingly threw himself into move after move on the ice that could all easily snap his damn neck if he fell badly. "But Auguste loved it. He loved this stupid local club that he started at. It's the same club I started skating at as well. Auguste always came to watch my practices in the hour before his own would start back then. And he _always_ watched my competitions. He missed one of his own games once so that he could support me. His coach was furious, but Auguste told him he could go fuck himself. It's the only time I ever heard him swear. That's when I started coming to his games as well, even though I found hockey kind of boring. I went to every single one, because that's what he did for me. And because I loved to watch _him_ play, at least; it made him so happy every time, even on those rare days when his team lost. It would be… meaningful, to him, that I would choose a symbol of his sport in his honour, despite me disliking it, just as I chose to watch it back then despite not being interested in it."

It was meaningful to Laurent as well, evidently. It wasn't hard to see why when it was much more than just a symbol of hockey. It was a symbol of Auguste himself. Of their relationship as brothers.

"It's probably stupid," Laurent said, self-effacing for once. "No one outside of France will have the slightest clue why I've chosen this, and even a lot of people there won't get it. They probably wouldn't even bother questioning it if it was just for some exhibition skate, but in the free skate? When it doesn't seem to have anything to do with the song I'm skating to? Everyone will critique it to high heaven, even though costumes are basically irrelevant to the actual performance. But I don't care. Fuck them. This isn't for them."

"Fuck them," Damen agreed. He considered letting it lie there, but he found himself wanting to say more, so he took a chance. "Auguste would be so proud of you, you know."

"You didn't even know him," Laurent pointed out. 

"No. But I know you. And so I know that it's impossible that he wouldn't have been proud."

Laurent stared at him with a complicated expression. Not blank, but still indecipherable, at least to Damen. Damen thought that for once it seemed not like Laurent was hiding his emotions, but that he simply didn't know what to feel in the first place.

"Why do you have to say things like that to me?"

It was rhetorical. Damen thought Laurent probably already at least suspected the answer by now.

The fact that Laurent didn't speak further of it despite that told Damen that either Laurent was insisting on keeping whatever small remnants of professionalism might still exist between them at this stage – which was really a good idea, if Damen was honest – or that Laurent simply wasn't interested. Either way, Damen knew how to take a hint. He let it drop.

*

In the week before they were set to head for the U.S. Classic competition, Laurent was preparing to do a full run-through of one of his programs, with the music and all. That was a rare occurrence, with so many skaters needing the ice, so everyone was gathered around to watch. 

Just before Laurent stepped out onto the ice, Damen took Laurent's skate guards from his hand after Laurent had removed them and handed Laurent his water bottle with his other hand without even thinking about it.

"Look how domestic you two are. What's next? Making out in the rink? What was that you said ages ago about him not being a distraction when he's here?" Damen heard Ancel crow in Laurent's direction.

"I'm not the one who nearly falls flat on my face every time I do a triple axel just because it's the coach's favourite jump and I want to look 'appealing' while I do it," Laurent shot back.

Even Damen could attest to Ancel's constant falls on the axel; it was the only jump Damen could identify on sight, since it was the only one where the skater took off from the ground facing forwards instead of backwards. And Damen had definitely seen Ancel fall on that particular jump often. Though he hadn't seen any evidence of Berenger particularly reacting to Ancel performing the axel any differently to how he reacted to everyone, as if he found it attractive or something. Nor did he ever spot Berenger wincing or otherwise reacting much to Ancel's falls, even though seeing his lover hurt must have _felt_ different from when the other skaters fell. It felt different to Damen to see Laurent fall compared to, say, Estienne. 

Not that Damen meant to compare himself and Laurent to Berenger and Ancel. It was hardly the same thing.

But it was certainly true that even Laurent, who was the best of the skaters here as far as Damen was concerned, fell more often than Damen was comfortable with watching. He fell more often than anyone else, in fact, despite his talent being greater. It seemed to be partly because he went for bigger, harder jumps than most in the first place. But from what Damen had observed, it also seemed to be because many of the other skaters would sort of stop their jumps when something was going wrong, only rotating once or perhaps twice before landing even though they'd been aiming for three or four revolutions. Laurent called it a 'popped jump', and he hardly ever did them himself from what Damen had seen. If he took off wrong or ended up on a lean he couldn't recover from, Laurent still always went for it wholeheartedly, even when there was a nearly one hundred percent chance it was going to end with him sliding across the ice on his hip. Apparently, Laurent had once explained, it was significantly better for the points the skater would earn to spin around four times and fall than to turn once or twice and stay upright. And if it was better in competition, then why wouldn't he practice it that way?

No pain, no gain, Damen had said, and Laurent had scoffed at the cliché, but hadn't disputed it.

Of course, that was just the official explanation Laurent gave. Damen also thought it might have something to do with Laurent just being too stubborn to give up on a jump he'd started no matter what.

Where Laurent also differed from the others was that when he fell in a run-through, or missed something he was supposed to have done, or otherwise wasn't spot-on in his performance, he just kept going and improvised ways to make up for it, like changing the later jumps, rather than stopping the program and starting fresh to do it right, the way most of the other skaters insisted on doing. Again, it was what might actually happen in competition and Laurent wanted to train for it, but Damen still found himself surprised that he would make a mistake and just leave it be without more directly correcting it, given the choice. 

Not that Damen was complaining that Laurent was willing to somewhat accept or at least work with it when he produced something short of absolute flawlessness. Damen had been worried for a time what might happen in the free skate in particular if Laurent messed up on the program. If the tribute to his brother that he'd worked so hard on wasn't seen by the world in the perfect form he'd intended.

"It'll be perfect by the World Championships," Laurent claimed when Damen had hinted around the issue to more accurately gauge his feelings on the matter. He showed no signs of doubt that he'd be at Worlds in the first place. "But the quad loop is a new element for me, which I fast-tracked since my left leg is having trouble handling the take-off for the lutz. Though I would have preferred it to be otherwise, I'm perfectly aware that a month wasn't enough time to develop the consistency I would like. It's not ideal, but it's fine. Anyway, any figure skating authority that has even half a clue would tell you that there's no point in peaking right at the start of the season at some little competition that hardly even counts in the grander scheme, except to increase World Standing Points. I just have to do well enough there to get some prize money and maybe sponsorships, so I can afford the flights to the bigger events, and so I can actually _pay_ for my personal protection, finally."

"Right," Damen said, as if some of that hadn't gone over his head (like: what on earth were 'World Standing Points' anyway?).

"I'm still going to win the competition, though. By a mile," Laurent said, as if it wasn't even in question. 

Of course. There was realistic, and then there was humble. Laurent definitely couldn't be called one of those two things.

*

There were actually no more detectable attempts to injure or scare Laurent prior to his first competition. On the one hand, Damen was glad the increased levels of vigilance between Pallas and himself had paid off, and equally glad that it seemed he hadn't left any openings to be exploited. On the other, he had to hope that it didn't mean this was going to be a repeat of the previous year, where Laurent was targeted at the venue instead of beforehand. 

Damen would just have to make sure nothing came of it, if that was the plan.

*

Berenger didn't intend to accompany Laurent to the U.S. Classic, since it was a smaller competition and none of his other skaters were attending it. Laurent didn't seem to mind. Berenger had arranged instead for Damen to be listed as part of his coaching team so that Damen could then get a pass that would allow him to accompany Laurent everywhere in the rink, including standing alongside the boards while Laurent performed, and sitting with him in the Kiss and Cry to wait for the scores.

"In the _what_?" Damen had asked.

"The Kiss and Cry," Berenger had repeated seriously, as if he couldn't see anything strange or ridiculous in what he'd just said. "Where skaters and their coaches wait to receive their scores," he elaborated when Damen continued to stare at him uncomprehendingly.

Right. Damen really hoped Laurent wasn't going to be in the position where he felt the need to cry upon receiving his scores. As for the other thing…

Damen had a job to do. So he couldn't really afford to think about that possibility. Not that it really _was_ a possibility, since Laurent would never.

Obviously, Laurent had squirrelled away at least enough cash to make sure he was equipped to go to the early competitions, because he insisted on paying for Damen's flights as well as his own, since it was part of Damen's job to accompany him. Keeping it professional, Damen thought. Laurent seemed to be doing a better job of that lately than Damen felt like he was doing himself. Thankfully, it was a short enough distance to Salt Lake City, even if it wasn't a direct flight, that it wasn't a bank-breaking journey even with two tickets. Laurent paid for the hotel room as well. Just the one room, to which Damen didn't object. It was easier to protect Laurent that way anyway, especially given how they'd already seen that Laurent's hotel rooms couldn't always necessarily be trusted as safe havens. And why pay for a second room when there were two perfectly good beds in this one?

It was strange to go back to sitting through practice sessions where Damen didn't know every person present and didn't have specific backgrounds on all of them to give him some more accurate concept of the degree of risk they posed. It meant that Damen had to be even more attentive and cautious than usual while watching Laurent skate. But they weren't long practice sessions, at least, and Berenger was right about the coaching pass; Damen had no problem remaining right by Laurent's side everywhere in the building except for on the ice itself. There would be no attacker finding him vulnerable in a deserted locker room here. Damen would make sure there were no vulnerabilities available to be exploited by anyone who might be watching for an opening. 

Laurent was skating third last on the first day of the competition. Damen expected there to be some tension from having to wait around so long, and from seeing the others perform and set the benchmark without Laurent himself being able to do anything to influence it. At least in hockey, the players could actually influence the other team's performance to a point. It was hard for Damen to swallow the idea of a sport where you could perform even a world-record-making performance, and yet still lose because a few minutes later someone came and did just that little bit better, and there was nothing you could do to stop them.

If there were any nerves from such considerations, though, Laurent didn't show a whiff of it. He just looked determined.

Laurent's short program costume looked like something a medieval aristocrat might have worn. Or what the period drama miniseries version of such a person would be laced into by their costume department, to be more realistic. It suited him better than the free skate costume on an objective level, divorcing it from the underlying meaning of the costume. And it certainly showed off the lines of his body better because it was a much tighter fit. But Damen knew Laurent personally felt more attached to the other outfit, and he definitely knew why that was. 

The costume for the short did directly suit the music, though, which couldn't be said for the free. The short program music was some grand piece that sounded like it might be from an opera or something similar, though Damen couldn't quite place it; opera wasn't really his thing. It was the kind of music that Damen hadn't been at all surprised to learn that Laurent was skating to. Though at least the music for the free was likely more unique to Laurent. Damen wouldn't be surprised if a hundred other skaters had used this same operatic music over the years. 

But, although it was probably biased, Damen was convinced that Laurent would nonetheless manage to do the music justice in a way that no other skater had managed to.

Damen didn't think Laurent would appreciate a 'good luck' just before he went out to skate. He probably would have thought it was asinine. What would Berenger do under these circumstances? Damen settled for a purposeful, if slightly awkward, nod. He thought Laurent probably got the point. He let out a little huff, probably of understated laughter at Damen's 'idiocy', then pushed himself away from the boards and out towards the centre of the ice when his name was announced over the PA.

Damen had never seen this piece performed as a whole, with the music, in costume, and with the applause of the spectators (even if there weren't a lot of them in the stands, to be honest) seemingly urging Laurent onwards through certain parts. It was interesting to watch it that way. Damen wouldn't have believed three months ago that he would ever have entertained such a thought about men's singles figure skating, of all things, but there it was. Damen would also never, back then, have anticipated watching a beautiful man like Laurent de Vere stretch himself out into a series of impossibly flexible poses while he spun in place, and finding himself feeling impressed not because Damen could vividly imagine how each pose might translate into the man sprawled out for him in Damen's bed, but rather because Damen was thinking: good, he'd held that so much better than in the last practice, so he should be awarded all four levels for that one, and would hopefully get a high grade of execution for the difficulty of it as well. 

Damen had acclimated, it seemed.

Damen was no expert still, of course, but what he certainly could say was that Laurent's first official showing of the program seemed to have been fairly exceptional. There were no falls, though one jump landing looked hard-won to Damen's eyes, and Laurent's first words when Damen handed him his skate guards were to complain that he'd missed an edge in his step sequence and so would probably only get a Level 3 on that.

It seemed like a long wait in the so-called Kiss and Cry (a place where neither of those things were currently happening, so Damen really did feel it was a stupid name for what was ultimately just a bench seat). The score that eventually came back from the judges was just over the hundred point mark. That seemed high to Damen, though he was hardly the one to ask. Certainly it was about fifteen points clear of the current second place skater. Laurent himself didn't seem overjoyed about it, though. He was probably dwelling on the step sequence still, if Damen knew him at all.

The following day followed much the same pattern, though this time Laurent did fall once, and did a double jump instead of a triple at some point as the second jump in a combination. Laurent never did doubles by choice. Laurent was even less impressed with his performance this time.

"You said it yourself," Damen reminded him. "The aim is to get better and better as the season goes on. This is just the platform for you to jump off."

But even thought Laurent already knew all of that, and had been the one to say it in the first place, Damen knew that what Laurent would see as clear flaws still had to be a hard pill to swallow for a perfectionist like him. Though Damen tried to take heart in the fact that Laurent didn't seem depressed that he'd failed to fully deliver it during the first time the world at large had been in a position to watch that particular skate (maybe because Laurent had claimed hardly anyone would be watching this particular event anyway). He instead just seemed slightly irritated because he knew he was capable of more.

Laurent won by a mile, just as he'd predicted. But it was against a weaker field, Laurent pointed out, so that was only to be expected. Damen glanced around and hoped that none of the other skaters had heard him saying that. Laurent himself wouldn't care if they had, but as far as Damen was concerned, the last thing Laurent needed was to have a large chunk of the international male figure skaters treating him with the same kind of animosity as Ancel did. He had more than enough potential real enemies as it was without adding dozens of petty skating rivalries into the mix.

*

There was some minor level of reaction to Laurent online and in the figure skating community in general in the days after the U.S. Classic. Apparently (though Damen barely followed it when Laurent explained it, to be honest) his was the highest score set so far this season in the short program. That actually made it a new world record because some recent change in the scoring rules meant the old records were all defunct now. And unlike some of the other 'highest so far this season' scores that were appearing this early on, Laurent's was actually good enough that people were considering that it might not be immediately overwritten in the next competition or two, and therefore might actually stand as the record for a while yet. But it was by a skater hardly anyone seemed to have ever heard about, and at a competition few people watched, so of course the attention accordingly wasn't anything like it would have been if someone had set a record at, say, the Olympics.

The Autumn Classic back in Canada at the end of the next week turned out to be a very different animal, though. There were a lot more people in attendance for the short program, and there seemed to be a kind of buzz about the place that had been absent in the States. And:

"I'm not the only one providing personal protection here," Damen commented. They were discreet, but Damen knew what to look for. Those certainly weren't part of anyone's coaching team. If they were any good at their jobs, they could probably tell the same about him, even though the pass around Damen's neck would seem to proclaim otherwise.

"The current Olympic Champion is here at this competition," Laurent said. "He has… particularly devoted fans, shall we say."

Ah. So it was more like what Damen had initially expected his own job to entail when he'd first considered taking on Laurent as a client; fending off over-zealous fans at events and making sure none of them followed the skater back to his hotel room or otherwise harrassed him.

Damen hadn't really bothered to research the current top skaters; unless they were a direct risk to Laurent, there was only one skater Damen needed to think about. But it didn't take a genius to figure out which one was the Olympic Champion during the six-minute warm-up. The whole crowd exploded when he jumped well and gasped like the world was crashing down around their ears when he didn't. The rest of the skaters, Laurent included, got a smattering of applause at best when they jumped. The difference didn't seem to bother Laurent one way or the other, thankfully. He was so focused that he probably didn't even really hear it, to be honest.

Laurent's short program went relatively well. The Olympic Champion's went better, apparently, though Damen preferred what he'd seen when Laurent was on the ice. Laurent ended up in second after the short, two points behind the leader.

"You're still well within reach, and the free program is what matters most," Berenger said. 

Laurent just hummed tunelessly. Damen couldn't tell whether the noise was vaguely annoyed or just thoughtful.

Laurent skated last in the free, just after the Olympic Champion, for whom things hadn't gone as well as they apparently should have. Before he could take to the ice himself, Laurent had to wait for a bunch of young children to clear the ice of what seemed like about a thousand items the audience had thrown onto it as, Damen supposed, gestures of their adoration for the previous skater. Laurent paid it no attention, just sipping casually at his water bottle.

Laurent didn't fall this time. It wasn't quite the best quality that Damen had ever seen Laurent display while skating this program, or parts thereof, but surely no one could argue that it wasn't a great performance. 

This time, Laurent didn't beeline straight towards where Berenger and Damen were waiting for him after his bows. He arced around closer to the edge of the ice off to Damen's left so that he could bend down to scoop up something that had been thrown onto the ice. There were a few other items being thrown as well, which were being fetched by young girls on skates. It was nothing like the insane cascade of stuffed animals that had accompanied the bows of the Olympic Champion after _his_ skate, but there had been nothing at all thrown during any of Laurent's previous performances, nor for many of the other skaters present.

Laurent had arrived at the boards with what looked like a plushie version of a stemmed red rose wrapped in cellophane clutched in his hand. He looked strangely shell-shocked. Damen thought for a moment that Laurent thought his skate had been bad and was upset. But: "People are throwing things," Laurent said.

"They seem to do that," pointed out Damen. "It's supposed to be a good thing, I think."

"Yes, obviously. They're throwing things for _me_ , though. Why would they do that?"

Something clenched hard in Damen's chest over how difficult to believe Laurent seemed to find it. Maybe Damen should have bought him flowers or something to present to him after each skate. Was that something an 'assistant coach' would do? He hadn't taken much notice of the other coaching teams. Berenger had no gifts for Laurent, but then Berenger was hardly what one would call 'demonstrative' in public towards anyone, even Ancel.

"You're now a Canadian skater performing in Canada, who skated a great short program that caught their interest, and then just skated what I can pretty much assure you was a winning program," Berenger pointed out. "Did you think they would just clap politely and then immediately forget all about you?"

Damen thought of Laurent being a French skater in France, performing probably just as well, and yet seeing nothing come from his efforts. No wonder he wasn't expecting any kind of positive reaction.

Damen was going to buy him a whole fucking flower shop next time.

*

Laurent won this event as well, but it was clear he still wasn't entirely pleased with that. 

Though not quite as displeased as Ancel was with having to settle for the bronze medal at all, let alone when it was Laurent who had the gold. Damen wasn't looking forward to the bitterness that would be free fired around the rink in the first week or so back at Berenger's practices. Though to Ancel's credit, at least he didn't seem interested in suggesting that Berenger should have gone out of his way to make sure his lover won over Laurent. Not in public at least. Damen honestly had no idea what Ancel was like with Berenger in private, and didn't have any desire to educate himself on that.

Laurent's problem seemed to be that he claimed that the only reason he'd beat out the skater that everyone seemed to have come here from across the globe to scream over was that the man had had a relatively poor start to his season, by his standards. And Laurent had been mediocre by _his_ standards, he claimed. He hadn't looked mediocre to Damen, and Damen made sure to say as much, but Laurent just brushed it off as per usual.

"I'll do better next time," Laurent said. "I'll win on my own merit, not just because someone else lost it for himself."

"You could just try to enjoy it, you know," Damen suggested.

Laurent frowned, looking at Damen like he was speaking a language Laurent didn't understand. "I did enjoy it. No matter what actually happens out there, I enjoy every second that I'm on the ice, allowed to skate the way I want," he said, as if it should be obvious. "It's only when I step back past the boards that I start focusing on how to make it feel even better next time I'm allowed to skate rather than just revelling in the moment." 

Oh.

Of course, that wasn't the part that Laurent told the media.

"There's still a lot of room to grow," Laurent had said haughtily at the press conference. "The PCS was good, of course, but I needlessly lost a lot of points on the GOE on a few of the jumps, especially the quad loop, and the change-foot combination spin was only a level three. I could do so much better. And I will, as the season progresses."

He flashed what Damen could tell was a completely fake smile at the end, and somehow that came off as charming enough that he seemed to get away with the obvious arrogance.

The last question Laurent answered was someone asking why he'd never made a splash while he was representing France, if he was capable of skating like this.

Laurent's smile was tighter this time. "There have been a lot of factors involved. I've found a lot of support with my team here, and clearly the move to Canada has proved beneficial. For that, I would like to thank my uncle back in France, for providing me with the impetus to make the change and improve my life so much. I hope he understands that I'll do whatever it takes to repay him for his special brand of motivation."

"Was it really a good idea to use the media to basically announce to your uncle that you're coming after him?" Damen asked once Laurent was done and Damen was escorting him down the tunnel under the stands, away from the crowds. 

"He knows my intentions anyway," Laurent said. "It isn't going to change anything for either of us. But it felt good, even if he wasn't here so that I could see his reaction."

It wasn't really surprising that Laurent wanted to rub it in. That was what he was like, at least about some things. Damen likely would have found that insufferable when he'd first met him. Things had obviously changed quite a bit since then.

It took about three hours between the end of the skating performances and when they managed to get fully away from the skating venue and back to their shared hotel room that evening. Laurent was quick to disappear off into the bathroom to change out of his costume and wash what had to be a layer of dried sweat off himself.

Damen settled on top of the covers of his hotel bed to wait for Laurent's reappearance. He considered turning on the television. Then he considered having to deal with Laurent's reaction to him doing that for the rest of their waking hours that night. He opted for using his phone instead. He had to admit that he wasn't really expecting what he found when he did.

"You're trending on French Twitter," Damen calmly informed Laurent once he'd opened the bathroom door and returned into the bedroom. Laurent was now dressed in a fresh training shirt and what Damen realised after a long moment were Damen's own tracksuit pants. When had he borrowed (or stolen) those? Damen had no idea why he would, anyway. They were far too big for him. They hung too low on Laurent's hips, precariously like they might fall off at any moment.

"I'm _what_?" Laurent asked, which was thankfully enough to jerk Damen's attention back to the social media situation.

The tweet that had started it, as far as Damen could tell, translated to something along the lines of: _Anyone else catch the livestream of blond hottie skater Laurent de Vere wearing some hockey jersey? He's Canadian, but… #augustedevere vibes?_. Apparently, Auguste still had quite a lot of fans in his home country. Of course he did, Damen thought, considering the tragically abrupt ending to his career and the fact that he was kept alive in the public mind by some of his photo ads seeming to be still running online even six years later. Presumably as a result of the mention of Auguste, that had gotten quite the reaction. Like, for example: _OMG, not actually Canadian! The bio for de Vere says his hometown is Paris! And the jersey looks like the old one for Auguste's local club! #deverebrothers ???_ And it had blown right the hell up from there, it seemed.

"I'm pretty sure no one can just erase all traces of your presence now," Damen pointed out.

He liked to think that the expression he saw on Laurent's face right then was cautiously hopeful.

Damen would do just about anything to make sure that hope was fulfilled.

*

The day after the free skate, there was some kind of networking event for the skaters and others related to the sport, not least including the potential sponsors Laurent clearly wanted an opportunity to woo to his side. There had apparently been something similar after the U.S. Classic as well, but the swift turnover of just a few days between events and the fact that that competition in the States had been so comparatively low-key had meant Laurent had deemed it more worthwhile to get to Oakville to attend the Autumn Classic practices than to wait around in Salt Lake City just to pointlessly attend the banquet. The number of eyes on this event meant that there were a lot more high-profile sponsors who would be in attendance here. And given that Laurent was representing Canada now, Canadian sponsors were obviously far more likely to pick him up as well. Laurent had every reason to attend and nothing dragging him away, as his next event would be a few weeks away at the earliest; Laurent seemed sure he would be assigned to at least one Grand Prix event now, based on his two Challenger series wins, but there were a few choices where Canada had as-yet-unfilled men's singles slots, so Laurent couldn't predict which of the events he might be sent to.

Though Damen had to remain close in order to continue guarding Laurent all throughout the post-event banquet, Damen didn't use that proximity to listen in on the conversations in which Laurent tried to subtly convince everyone of his marketability. Mostly that was because it bothered Damen to see Laurent being so falsely charming. He didn't like the lie of it. He preferred Laurent as he really was, and it irritated him that Laurent thought – and was probably right – that most of the people here would only be interested in him if he presented himself as a package of skating talent and blistering good looks with some bland or agreeable personality.

When the event was finally over, and they were alone in their room once more, Laurent said, "Torveld from Patras Enterprises is desperate to sponsor me, it seems. Or desperate to get me into bed, really, but I'll turn it into a sponsorship offer yet."

Damen blinked. Then blinked again, slowly. "You're going to sleep with someone for an endorsement deal?"

Laurent looked at Damen like he was quite possibly the least intelligent person in all of Canada right now, if not in the whole world. "Have you actually met me? I meant I'd divert his interest towards business instead."

Right. Of course Laurent wouldn't have considered doing that. He'd just… surprised Damen into a momentary uncertainty, because Damen hadn't expected him to so nonchalantly bring up sex like that in the first place. Damen hadn't predicted the sharp jolt of jealousy that had rocked through him. Why should Damen feel jealous? There was nothing going on between himself and Laurent, after all. 

That was what Damen had been repeatedly telling himself when he'd been trying to convince himself that he should pick someone up in that sports bar a few weeks back, and it hadn't really ended up being that convincing then, either.

There was nothing more than a surface attraction and the beginnings of what might one day be a proper friendship on Laurent's side. But Damen was admittedly way too invested at this point for it to be anything but a flat-out lie to say there was nothing going on for his part.

Clearly unaware of the path Damen's thoughts were taking, Laurent was talking strictly business. "With the points I achieved at both events, it would take a miracle for anyone who's actually attending two Challenger competitions to beat me in the overall score. The prize money for first place isn't exactly astronomical, in the grand scheme of things, but it'll be a start. And that's assuming I don't get an advance on a sponsorship deal from Patras Enterprises long before then. Either way, I'll transfer as much of what I owe you as I can afford into your account as soon as it arrives in mine, and the remainder should be on the way soon enough."

Damen hesitated. He shouldn't really take it. It didn't feel right. Damen might have been performing security duties, technically, but now that they were finally at that point, it seemed somehow disingenuous to take money from Laurent for it. Like Damen was pretending that this was a professional relationship when no one else in the industry would look at what had passed between Damen and Laurent over the last few months and call it a proper contractual interaction.

Clearly correctly interpreting Damen's heavy silence, Laurent insisted, "Take the money, Damen. The bills don't pay themselves, as you mentioned at the start of this, and as I'm uncomfortably aware myself. If you don't take it, it just means you'll eventually have to stop protecting me to go get a different job so that you can earn yourself an income that will sustain you. Unless, of course, you intend to starve or get evicted, and obviously that wouldn't be ideal. You might remember that I need to eat and sleep at your apartment as well."

"Nice to know that what you appreciate most about me is the roof over our heads and the food in our fridge."

"I didn't say that was what I appreciated _most_ ," Laurent rebutted. "There are a few other things. And all in all, I think you'll find that I'm _strongly opposed_ to not having you stay with me." 

"You are?" Damen asked. "You know, I thought you hated me for a long time, and would have been glad to exchange me for someone else." Nikandros, for example. Though Damen could still hardly believe that Laurent had said that. Nikandros and Laurent would have been a terrible match. Damen was far better for him.

Laurent confessed, "I did actually try not to like you. I mean, you were a _hockey player_. I made one exception for Auguste, but two? It would have been easier to keep up my initial distaste for your unfortunate background if you weren't such a ridiculously good man, though. You remind me of Auguste in some ways, you know."

Damen was aware that that was probably the biggest compliment Laurent could ever give, and wanted to be able to just gratefully take it as such. And yet… Laurent saw him like his brother? That... wasn't ideal.

"That's your cue, you know," Laurent said.

"My cue?" 

"To tell me how you feel. Do I need to put up an invitational sign in flashing lights above my head?"

Damen frowned, uncertain. Laurent rolled his eyes.

"You're ridiculous," Laurent said. "Fine."

He grabbed the front of Damen's shirt just under the collar and pulled down and forward.

Damen made a shocked noise, though he wasn't sure if it was in reaction to Laurent's tongue teasing Damen's lips apart or the way Laurent's hand that wasn't fisted into Damen's shirt weaved into his hair and tugged sharply at his curls. Damen didn't want to find the sudden tingling pain in his scalp at all hot. Apparently, Damen didn't always get what he wanted.

Though anyone who could see him now would certainly have difficulty believing that.

"Ok," Damen said, practically gasping, when Laurent let him come up for air. "Now I _really_ shouldn't be taking any kind of payment from you."

Laurent scoffed, "Don't be an idiot about it, if you can possibly help it. Though I guess if you're going to be weird about it, we could just get a joint account and then treat all future guarding activities as you just acting like a seriously overprotective boyfriend rather than a bodyguard."

Damen… didn't really know how to unpack all of the things that Laurent had just implied in that one sentence.

Laurent didn't give Damen much of a chance to do so anyway, pushing him determinedly back onto one of the beds. Damen was too distracted to notice which one.

And rightly so.

Because holy _fuck_ was Laurent flexible.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And then one day about 4-5 years in the future, when the fucker is dead (probably because Damen flew to France and stealth murdered him when he found out the full extent of what he did to Laurent, but shhh, no one needs to know that), Olympic Gold Medalist and three time World Champion Laurent de Vere is going to show up at his uncle's grave and leave the very first rose plushie he ever received from his figure skating fans there with a note attached to it saying something very much along the lines of: _Fuck you, I won._
> 
> The End.
> 
> So just so we're all clear on that.
> 
> XD 
> 
> Anyway, anyone who even vaguely follows figure skating couldn't possibly fail to notice that I have _very heavily_ based certain details surrounding an off-screen side character on a real male skater. But it's fiction, guys. Fiction. XD
> 
> And just as an aside, can I just say how wild it is to write fics from a biased PoV sometimes. I'm sitting there typing with my own two hands the words 'Damen knew how to take a hint' while literally screaming ARGH, NO YOU DON'T MOTHERFUCKER!


End file.
